Raleigh

Raleigh is as old as the hills. I don't know the relationship between the English Raleigh and the U.S. Raleigh, but they've been in the mountain bike game for some time as well. And they've typically been pretty innovative - bonded steel/aluminum frames, cheap Russian made titanium frames, and of course, the John Tomac years. Though that was the past, they've been pretty low-end and dull for a while. [edit] i didn't mention that the canada raleigh is different again from the american raleigh. weird company man...

John Tomac Edition - The customer edition of John Tomac's Raleigh circa '92. John had just finished a year of riding under a gentleman's agreement with Yeti on their Easton C-9 tubed prototype. When he was ready for some factory support, he went to the company with the best bike in the world - Raleigh.

Ha! Thought I was on glue for a second didn't you?

This bike is actually a main triangle of the aforementioned Easton carbon wrapped C-9 tubes bonded to Merlin titanium lugs and rear section. It's very unlikely that Raleigh had anything to do with the construction of this frame. Johnny rode most of the time on this frame with a Tioga-labeled fork made by Showa that was never made available to the public.

John Tomac Edition - I was pretty excited to have found this pic. This is an original John Tomac titanium/carbon hardtail from 1992 or so. And it seems to be totally stock - Tioga disc wheel, Dia-Compe cantilevers, Rock Shox Mag 21 (not the fork that John used, but that Showa-made, Tioga-labelled fork was never made available to the public), three piece Tioga cranks/BB, and the blue anodized Tioga stem/seatpost/barends.
Very cool vintage mountain bike.

** TeamCow Joke Bike **

Hardtail - Well, this is quite obviously a race bike. It says so right on it. The Biopace chainrings, fender mounts at the rear dropout, and hi-rise stem are dead give-aways too.

Titanium - In about '93 or '94, everybody was buzzing about Russian titanium. We were told those crafty ruskies had been using Ti since the 50's, and that Russian farmers dug their potatoes with spades made from titanium.

In short, the West was (supposedly) way behind.

Somehow, Raleigh of England worked out a deal to use this 'cheap' tubing. The bikes, while not technically bad, were not up to the quality standards set by Merlin and Litespeed. Although, neither were the prices. Anyway, I figure they must not have been that good, because they only sold them for two years at the most.

By the way, it took me longer than I care to admit to figure out what a 'Leigh' was...