The Raleigh Dirt Cross was a children's bicycle manufactured during the late 1990s by the Raleigh Bicycle Company of Nottingham, England.
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Design and styling
The Dirt Cross was very unusual design and is best described as a hybrid of a BMX and a mountain bike. It was fitted with 20 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. Every Dirt Cross was fitted with 5 speed Shimano gears and a twist-grip gear controller as standard. It is possible that the design was influenced by the Strika as both bikes were fitted with imitation front suspension forks. Although children's bikes with functional suspension forks were available from Raleigh during the late 1990s, those fitted to Dirt Cross were purely cosmetic.
Advertising
Television and poster advertisements for the Dirt Cross featured the Nottingham Forest striker Stuart Pearce . 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. Production ceased in 1999 with no similar replacement model.
Go Kart
The Dirt Cross title was later used on a children's Go Kart from Raleigh which is still on sale in 2009.