1984 Raleigh Elkhorn

1984 Raleigh Elkhorn

If you’ve seen one road, you’ve seen them all (according to Raleigh’s advertisements from the early ‘80’s). Try this new mountain-biking thing instead!

Raleigh designed their early Mountain Tour bikes for a new breed of cyclist who liked to go off the road “on purpose”. These bikes were assembled around extra long frames that featured “extended” angles and “longer” fork rake which added up to extra stability for going downhill without compromising the quick handling that’s needed when “dodging startled chipmunks”.

Early mountain bike design, the hypothetical abuse that bike designers suspected the bikes would have to contend with and earnest ad copy were a fun mixture. I’m still not sure what an extended frame angle might be or how fork rake might get longer instead of just more pronounced.

Besides offering bikes with sealed-bearing ruggedness for riding down mountains, across fields and the occasional mud flat, Raleigh added some extra potency in other areas. The “bull moose” handlebars on this Elkhorn model bike must have been more than than a marketing guy could resist as the component highlights in the advertisement claim that the Deore XT cantilever brakes “can stop a moose”.

Bullmoose bars

Raleigh badge

Shoulder strap

Suntour & Takagi cranks

Raleigh 575mt tubing

Suntour AG derailleur

As a really early mass-produced mountain bike, this Raleigh is a hodgepodge of components. There’s a Takagi triple crankset with the popular half-step gearing option for long-distance touring. The wheels are borrowed from Raleigh’s beach cruiser offerings, it has derailleurs from the road line-up, and a smattering of BMX parts.

This Elkhorn model rides smoothly and predictably on dirt trails (we’ve tried it) but the proportions are weird. The seatposts that were available for early mountain bikes were only about 200mm long at best, so Raleigh was expecting that the rider for this bike would be about 5’7” tall. In spite of that the “extended” 68 degree seat and head tube angles coupled with a long top tube made the reach to the handlebars appropriate for someone about 6’1”.

I think we’ll probably install a longer seatpost, air up the tires and head off road. Maybe see if we can startle some chipmunks in the process.