mine would have to be the Raleigh Team bike!



In addition to being the best in the catalog, it had a few other factors that makes it interesting for me....
1. It used Reynolds 753 heat treated tubing, which was the best commercially available tubing at the time, although initially limited to this specific bike. This was because the same company that owned Raleigh also owned Reynolds. Arguments could be made that early titanium bikes were better, but few were good enough to be raced professionally.
2. The Team bikes, especially the 753 models, were made by a little specialty shop in Raleigh known as the Specialist Bicycles Development Unit, or SBDU. They even had little stickers on the chainstays indicating this.....


There were even little details that were fairly unique and fun, such as the drilled dropout faces....





3. The bike was race successfully, both here in the USA and in Europe. I've seen it raced, and lived in the town that was the HQ for one of the best teams of its time (and frequented the bike shop that was owned by the team's manager, Mike Fatka). A photo from the 1982 Iron Horse Classic race in Durango, CO.


The bike has also been the subject of magazine articles, such as this Design Classics article by Hilary Stone, published in Cycling Plus magazine.




so, all in all, a great bike with a great history!

Steve in Peoria