The Birth of the Specialist Bicycle Development Unit

The Carlton company had originally been acquired to furnish Raleigh with a small hand-building section. At the time of the Raleigh takeover Carlton were building 2500 machines a year, such was the popularity of Carlton cycles that by 1974 production had reached 2500 per week.

The bicycles were still hand built, but hand built in batches. Raleigh management decided something had to be done and Gerald O’Donovan; his family originally owned Carlton (and then worked for Raleigh), took over a small factory at Digby Street in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. In 1974 he created this new factory for making very small numbers of outstandingly high quality specialist frames and bicycles.  With only six specially selected expert frame builders from the Raleigh factory; these builders were also chosen for their inventive capability, as Gerald O’Donovan was very much focused on future innovative developments with his new unit.

During the first year (1975) the SBDU was producing about 30 frames a week, and was heavily involved in development work on the then new composite technologies and also components specification. It is estimated that the SBDU was building around a 1000 frames a year with four builders.

Min önskan är självklart att äga en riktig TI Raleig SBDU Team Pro cykel någon gång. De var tillverkade i Raleigh Specialist Bicycle Development Unit, som grundades 1974 och hade en egen verkstad i Ilkeston, Derbyshire.  SB enheten är mest känd för att ha utvecklat de nya  Reynolds 753 lättvikts rören. Från 1975 års säsong använde TI Raleigh teamet endast cyklar byggda med dessa rör.