hub-design was commissioned to make a sculpture to celebrate the Raleigh Bicycle Co association with the city of Nottingham, the sculpture was in the new central library in the Broardmarsh area. I the tried to get bikes that were all built at one of the several factories in Nottingham or Worksop (Carlton, Sun etc.) Raleigh ceased manufacturing in the city in 1999 (assembly in 2002) some of the later models were probably manufactured elsewhere and assembled in Nottingham.
Raleigh Bikes was formed in 1885 and named after the street in Nottingham, site of its first factory. By 1913 it was the biggest cycle manufacturer in the world with factories on Russell, Clare, and Glasshouse Street as well. It moved to purpose-built factories on Faraday Road and then Lenton Boulevard in the 20’s & 30’s It eventually expanded overseas to Dublin & the US. By the late 60’s Raleigh had been bought itself by Tube Investments (TI) who made Reynolds Tubing for the bike manufacture and it swallower up seventy five percent of UK bicycle manufacturing industry.