The new look of Raleigh’s XXIX line
July 19th, 2007 by Tim GrahlI recently took delivery of a 2008 Raleigh XXIX+G sporting the new yellow. Guitar Ted posted the other day about the new colors of blue and yellow on the 2008 Raleighs and I’d like to give my two cents.
First off, I think the color choices are perfect. But that’s probably because they took the advice I gave to Raleigh’s marketing coordinator awhile back when she asked for my input on colors. I said to go bold and they did and I love it.
They’re also taking a cue from hipper parts of the bike industry and went extremely minimalistic on the graphics. The one issue I take here is how closely it matches the new Swobo frames.
I don’t know if they intentionally ripped off Swobo or not, but the similarities are definitely there. But I guess if you’re gonna copy someone (on purpose or not) it might as well be the super cool folks at Swobo.
That said, I do like the badge they have on the top tube, only it’s hard to see! On both sides they have the cables running directly in front of it. In the second picture you can see that I had to move the cable line to clearly see.
Those are the things I take issue with on the small stuff, however take a step back and I really like the way the new paint jobs turned out. The bikes look hot and I give two big thumbs up to the design folks at Raleigh.
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I AGREE!!! Less is more sometimes. I am not a fan of yellow, but the lack of huge massive decals is really refreshing. And the head badge is pretty cool too. I know that often a bike has huge decals on it because the bike acts as a rolling billboard of sorts for the respective company. But I would also like to think that having a less pronounced decal package may inspire other riders to actually approach the person riding the bike with less decals. And if you starting talking bikes with the guy riding the minimalistic bike, and that rider really like thier machine, they WILL tell you about it. Pride in ownership!! And to me that is a much better marketing angle then fancy graphics.
Chris has a great point here. If you see a bike, and the decals are screaming at you from 20 yards away, there’s no need to even approach the rider and ask. However; if you can’t tell, and you are curious………..;)
Love the yellow. Then again I drive a bright yellow car.
What’s MSRP?
I really like these XXIX, I have ridden mine ALOT at Oleta State Park near Miami. I ride 4-6 times per week for the past month+ and I have been impressed with the durability - I clean the chain and spray it off each ride, nothing more.
I think the bicycle is an excellent value.
Plus, I really enjoy the 29′r rigid game
Love hearing comments on the XXIX+g…. mine arrives MONDAY! Since I have been reading all the posts here I will be sure to update with my 2 cents in a week or two. I went with the Black 07, the yellow is great but something about a big black tires on a big black frame was just too much to resist. Take it for what its worth, but I test drove 3 different fisher 29er (X-cal, Ferrus, and one or two more) and can tell you that the Raleigh rides so much better, the components are pretty much a wash (maybe fisher does a bit better). Between the Ferrus and the XXIX+g the Raleigh has much better geometry, felt smoother, and generally more comfortable ride, It was a no brainer… go with the raleigh.