My uncle ran a bike shop through the 1960s and 1970's and which survived him a few years into the 80s. By the time I became attuned to bicycle brands beyond the 20"ers that my friends and I were riding, he was selling mainly Raleighs which he augmented with other brands (some Peugeots and Frejus for example). While most of my friends rode Schwinn Stingrays (a few had Raleigh Chuppers), I was on a Raleigh Fireball. Ever since I've been a bit of a Raleigh snob, thinking he was a Raleigh dealer because he thought they were better. Well, my uncle passed in 1979, and it wasn't until about 12 years ago that I had a conversation with his former partner. I asked him about why they sold Raleighs. He said that, although there were always issues getting their exact orders filled by the Raleigh distributor (he's pretty sure Stuyvesant Cycles in NYC was getting the distributor to send them there), this was preferable than going with Schwinn which, although had good products and would have been more reliable in filling orders, insisted on taking control of what stores kept in inventory. This was not how they wanted to run things.