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The Raleigh Dirt Cross was a children's bicycle manufactured from 1996-1999 by the Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, England.
The Dirt Cross was very unusual design and is best described as a hybrid of a Grifter and a mountain bike. It was fitted with 20 and 24 inch wheels, and the styling of the handlebars and frame were similar to those of a BMX, with dimensions designed to accommodate 6 to 10 year olds. The Dirt Cross was fitted with 5 or 10 speed Shimano gears and a twist-grip gear controller as standard. It is possible that the design was influenced by the [[Raleigh Grifter,Strika and Boxer as the bikes were fitted with imitation front suspension forks[ citation needed ]. Although children's bikes with functional suspension forks were available from Raleigh during the late 1990s, those fitted to Dirt Cross were purely cosmetic. The bikes came in the colours green,red and silver.
Television and poster advertisements [1] for the Dirt Cross featured the Nottingham Forest defender Stuart Pearce . [2] The Dirt Cross was the first children's bike to be advertised by Raleigh using a multimedia application complete with MPEG video clips running on interactive public information kiosks.
Despite the rather high profile marketing campaign, sales of the Dirt Cross appear to be quite low[ citation needed ]. Production ceased in 1999 with no similar replacement model.
The Dirt Cross title was later used on a children's Go Kart from Raleigh which is still on sale in 2009.
A mountain bike (MTB) or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling. Mountain bikes share some similarities with other bicycles, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain. These typically include a suspension fork, large knobby tires, more durable wheels, more powerful brakes, straight, extra wide handlebars to improve balance and comfort over rough terrain, lower gear-ratios for climbing steep grades and sometimes rear suspension to really smooth out the trail.
Mountain biking is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain, such as air or coil-sprung shocks used as suspension, larger and wider wheels and tyres, stronger frame materials, and mechanically or hydraulically actuated disc brakes. Mountain biking can generally be broken down into five distinct categories: cross country, trail riding, all mountain, downhill, and freeride.
A touring bicycle is a bicycle designed or modified to handle bicycle touring. To make the bikes sufficiently robust, comfortable and capable of carrying heavy loads, special features may include a long wheelbase, frame materials that favor flexibility over rigidity, heavy duty wheels, and multiple mounting points.
A utility bicycle,city bicycle, urban bicycle, European City Bike (ECB), classic bike or simply city-bike, is a bicycle designed for frequent short, moderately paced rides through relatively flat urban areas. It is a form of utility bicycle commonly seen around the world, built to facilitate everyday riding in normal clothes in a variety of weather conditions. It is therefore a bicycle designed for practical transportation, as opposed to those primarily for recreation and competition, such as touring bicycles, racing bicycles, and mountain bicycles. Utility bicycles are the most common form globally, and comprise the vast majority found in the developing world. City bikes may be individually owned or operated as part of a public bike sharing scheme.
Hybrid bicycles blend characteristics from more specialized road bikes, touring bikes and mountain bikes. The resulting "hybrid" is a general-purpose bike that can tolerate a wide range of riding conditions and applications. Their stability, comfort and ease of use make them popular with novice cyclists, casual riders, commuters, and children.
A bicycle fork is the part of a bicycle that holds the front wheel.
29ers or two-niners are mountain bikes and hybrid bikes that are built to use 700c or 622 mm ISO wheels, commonly called 29" wheels. Most mountain bikes once used ISO 559 mm wheels, commonly called 26" wheels. The ISO 622 mm wheel is typically also used for road-racing, trekking, cyclo-cross, touring and hybrid bicycles. In some countries, mainly in Continental Europe, ISO 622 mm wheels are commonly called 28" wheels or "28 Incher".
SR SunTour is a Taiwanese manufacturer of bicycle components, formed in 1988 when Osaka based SunTour (Maeda) went bankrupt and was purchased by Sakae Ringyo Company, a major Japanese maker of aluminum parts, particularly cranks and seat posts. SunTour reached a zenith of sales and commercial success from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Brompton Bicycle is a British manufacturer of folding bicycles based in Greenford, London.
Dirt jumping is the practice of riding bikes over jumps made of dirt or soil and becoming airborne. Dirt Jumping evolved alongside BMX racing and is similar to BMX or Mountain bike racing in that the rider jumps off of mounds of dirt, usually performing a midair trick in between. It differs in that the jumps are usually much larger and designed to lift the rider higher into the air. Additionally, the goal is not to complete the course with the fastest time, but rather to perform the best tricks with the best style. But dirt Jumpers are not Off-road BMX’s.
Bicycle suspension is the system, or systems, used to suspend the rider and bicycle in order to insulate them from the roughness of the terrain. Bicycle suspension is used primarily on mountain bikes, but is also common on hybrid bicycles.
The Raleigh Bicycle Company is a British bicycle manufacturer based in Nottingham, England and founded by Woodhead and Angois in 1885. Using Raleigh as their brand name, it is one of the oldest bicycle companies in the world. After being acquired by Frank Bowden in December 1888, it became The Raleigh Cycle Company, which was registered as a limited liability company in January 1889. By 1913, it was the largest bicycle manufacturing company in the world and since then the quality has declined. From 1921 to 1935, Raleigh also produced motorcycles and three-wheel cars, leading to the formation of Reliant Motors. Raleigh bicycle is now a division of the Dutch corporation Accell.
The Raleigh Grifter was a children's bicycle manufactured and marketed between 1976 and early 1983 by the Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, England. It was the "must have" bicycle of its time and bridged a gap between the Raleigh Chopper and the Raleigh Burner models. Its frame was very similar to the Raleigh Twenty Shopper bicycle, but with a front triangle which resembled an upside down Chopper frame. It was part of a range of age-specific bicycles and was positioned at the top of that range. The smallest in the range was the Raleigh Boxer with the Raleigh Strika in the middle.
A bicycle handlebar is the steering control for bicycles. It is the equivalent of a steering wheel for vehicles and vessels, but is most often directly mechanically linked to a pivoting front wheel via a stem which in turn attaches it to the fork. Besides steering, handlebars also often support a portion of the rider's weight, depending on their riding position, and provide a convenient mounting place for brake levers, shift levers, cyclocomputers, bells, etc.
The Raleigh Strika was a children's bicycle manufactured between 1976 and 1983 by the Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, England. It was part of the Action Bikes range, smaller in size than the Grifter but larger than the Boxer, with frame dimensions designed to accommodate 6 to 10 year olds.
A wheelie bike, also called a dragster, muscle bike, high-riser, spyder bike or banana bike, is a type of stylized children's bicycle designed in the 1960s to resemble a chopper motorcycle and characterized by ape hanger handlebars, a banana seat with sissy bar, and small wheels. Notable examples include the Schwinn Sting-Ray and Krate lines and the Raleigh Chopper line. Other notable manufacturers and retailers that offered models include AMF, CCM, Columbia, Huffy, Iverson, J. C. Penney, Malvern Star, Monark, Murray, Ross, Sears, and Vindec.
Diamondback Bicycles is a major bicycle brand that is based in Kent, Washington]. Diamondbacks are sold in many countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Most Diamondbacks are considered to be mid-type bicycles, with a high-end prototype in development as of 2011. Diamondback is owned by global private equity firm Regent, L.P., which also owns the Mavic cycling brand and Redline Bicycles.
The Raleigh Bomber was a bicycle aimed at the boys/youth market which first appeared in 1981. The Bomber had wide balloon tyres, a low slung frame and a sprung saddle with wide "cowhorn" style handlebars in the general style of a "cruiser" bicycle.