Derby Cycle/ Raleigh: Positive Start on Dutch Market

MAARSSEN, Netherlands (Feb 1) – Derby Cycle’s brand Raleigh used to be the most successful brand in the Netherlands during the seventies and eighties because of the world’s best bicycle race team they had in those days. After Derby Cycle’s sister company Gazelle was sold, the group did not have a relevant presence in this important bicycle market anymore. Derby Cycle was able to enlist one of the important dealers’ cooperatives in the Netherlands, ‘Bike Totaal’, as an exclusive partner for the brand Raleigh as well as taking over the whole production for the Raleigh brand. In the first half of 2005 nearly 10,000 Raleigh bicycles will be delivered to the Dutch market. Since 85 years Derby Cycle is one of the most important bicycle producers in Germany. Under the brand-name Kalkhoff - as well as several others – Derby Cycle is the market leader in Germany and the third biggest producer in Europe. In Cloppenburg the production reaches some 380,000 bicycles per year. (MH)