James Bond's Bicycle! A Classic Road Racer.

By now readers of the SBT blog know of the crew’s fondness for the James Bond books and movies.  We have blogged about how Bond has, to our knowledge, never ridden a bike.  Later, with the release of Skyfall we ranked the movies in order from best (Thunderball) to worst (The Spy Who Loved Me).  We have been asked that if Bond did ride a bike what would be his machine of choice?  The SBT crew has looked into this thoroughly.  

But first we need to look at why Bond would need a bike.  Well, cycling burns about 600 calories per hour and Bond is a bit of fitness freak.  On a bike you can move about three times faster than walking for about the same amount of energy so it would be easier and less strenuous to track down a villain.  And forget about gasoline (Bond would say “petrol”) because you can travel about 600 miles on a bicycle for about the same energy as one liter of petrol.  Bond can stash or park a bike anywhere because at last count there were roughly 1 billion bikes in the world so it would be easy to hide the “Bond bike.” And this number is growing; last year 130 million bikes were built while only 52 million cars were produced. Most of the action Bond gets himself mixed up in is in Europe and statistics show that the region has about 7% of all trips made on two wheels--and if he ever finds himself in Holland that percentage shoots up to 30%.   

So, on to the bike…  Bond would need something truly English and with a sense of tradition.  It would have to be on par with his Aston Martin automobile.  That company was formed in 1913 in Kensington (now headquartered in Warwickshire).  The cars are custom, collectible and expensive, traits Bond appreciates.  So for his bicycle, look no farther than Nottingham and a company created in 1887.  Bond would ride a Raleigh.  Raleigh, much like Aston Martin, has gone through a series of mergers and reorganizations but the time-honored name still holds true.   At one point in its history Raleigh was the most imported bike into the United States.  We blogged about Schwinn’s number one ranking in America for a generation, Raleigh was number two.  

Paul Sherwen, known to many as a retired professional cyclist but also the excellent foil to Phil Liggett, rode a Raleigh.   At one point in its history Raleigh owned BSA motorcycles and BSA is the choice of MI6 when it comes to motor bikes.   But like Schwinn in America, Raleigh was caught a bit flat-footed by the rise of the cheaper Asian-made bikes in the 1970s.  Lightweight manufacturers like Trek and Specialized began to emerge in the 1980s to also threaten market share.  Raleigh bikes were built using the preferred vertical integration method--every part of their bikes were made in-house or by companies wholly owned by Raleigh: cranks, tires, pedals, saddles, tubing, etc.  This process, albeit precise, was slow.  Today, Raleigh like Schwinn, is just part of a larger conglomerate.  And like the Schwinns of today the Raleigh isn’t the bike it used to be.  Bond would ride a Raleigh, but a classic Raleigh and no doubt modified by Q Branch.  We think the machine of Bond would be a vintage Raleigh Team Banana Bike (pictured) brought up to 21^st century standards with all of the accoutrements a spy would need like darts, missiles, grenade launcher and smoke bombs.

Visit our website for a Raleigh Banana Bike video.  www.stickybottleteam.net and click on VIDEOS.