The Aerospace Contour - Raleigh Pulsar

This 'aerospace contour' sticker is living on an oldish Raleigh Pulsar, I don't know the story behind it, but wow do I suddenly want a space shuttle graphic on my own bike.

It comes with the usual guarantees of supposedly quality tubing, in this case 18 - 23 controlled carbon.
Regular viewers will notice this has been locked up in exactly the same place as that classic Raleigh town bike I posted the other day. That's one thing I'm noticing that's different between Nottingham and Lund. Whereas in Lund there was a mass of locked bikes that sat indefinitely in the racks around the town, bikes in Nottingham move. After a certain time in the evening, most bikes have disappeared off with their owner (well you hope with their owner). Perhaps it is just a prevalence of bike theft that keeps the locked bike population down?

Raleigh Vogue is hardly posing

Raleigh Vogue could have been a name for some super stylish bike...

and perhaps this was when it first came out. But the passage of time hasn't been very kind to the style of these graphics.

So perhaps less vogue, more retro.

The Classic Nottingham Raleigh Bike

I've been talking about the kind of bikes that you find in Nottingham. The old Raleigh factory works means that there's this huge amount of classic British steel sitting around in the local bike racks. I spotted this one, and just thought, what a great example of the breed!

This little detail on the front fender is great. I've seen a few examples of brands putting little mascots or emblems on the front fender and this has that same feel.
This era of Raleigh's all carry the Made in Nottingham badge somewhere. Even if it wasn't always 100% true!
A very golden version of the Raleigh head tube logo.
From Nottingham, this bike was taken to London to be sold by E.Q. Bates cycles, and then later brought back up to it's place of origin haha.
Some casual pinstriping.
And there we have it, classic British Nottingham Raleigh.

The Marlboro Stiletto is neither smoke nor shoe

Another day, another bicycle manufacturer. Today's spot is this Marlboro Stiletto which ticks some new boxes for me. Seems to be following a pretty classic British bicycle design which is always made a little better when it's presented in black.

Here's the Marlboro head badge, the addition of the front reflector seems a modern after-thought.
A simple chain guard.
And here's that strange name, the Stiletto. Maybe it'd make more sense if this was a women's framed bike?