Phil_F_NM
Camera hacker
Bike frame arrived today. It's still a mystery as to what it is. It's VERY NICE as far as a road frame goes. All silver with "Raleigh" in black script with a red drop-shadow on the downtube. Frame and fork have chrome "socks". Top tube has three cable-guides for full-length housing. Downtube does not have any shifter bosses (one reason why I chose this one), which places this in 1981 at the very latest, as far as I can tell. Dropouts on the frame and fork are Suntour Superbe. Cable routing is under the bottom bracket, so that places this in the late 70s or later. Chainstays are not dimpled for tires or crankset, which is usually a mark of a track frame, but this is not one. Frame and fork are both Reynolds 531 with original decals. Lugs are "window" lugs, possibly Cinelli, but that's a slim possibility since this is not a Special Bikes production from the serial number. The serial number starts with 'N', placing it as a Nottingham bike however, there are known 'N' serial number framesets which were produced by Bridgestone. The 26.6 seatpost is also a mark of Japanese production. This frame really has the looks of a Miyata Full Pro, but that's only due to dropouts, cable guides, bottom bracket shell, and lugs. The geometry is definitely not the nearly vertical Full Pro, nor is the tubing Miyata splined, but it is almost certainly Japanese production (a good thing since mid-late 70s Raleigh QC was known to be horrible, in that you hope you get a bike brazed on Wednesday, not Monday or Friday.) I WAS going to put my old Stronglight A9 headset on this bike, but much to my surprise, it has a Campagnolo Gran Sport headset; same as the Pista with the larger bearings, but a different top nut. Guys at the bike shop where I had it shipped were all a little envious of this score.
I posted an appeal to the classic & vintage pool of knowledge on Bike Forums to see f I could glean more information about model, year, and location of production; we'll see what info I get in the next week or so.
I'm being held up by Velo Orange Enterprise rims being out of stock everywhere and on back-order with my LBS distributor. That rim has a ~15mm high brake track, much larger than average rims, which is a feature I want in order to give me the most adjustability forward and aft for gear changes.
I have yet to finally decide on things like seatpost, stem, handlebars, calipers and brake levers. I need to get the crankset on this, then measure from the bottom pedal stroke to various points in space in order to compare against the cockpit measurements of my Miyata 610. Then I need to get abuilt 700c wheel with a tire on it in the rear dropout to see what kind of brake reach I'll need. As I haven't yet built my wheelset, I can still choose to go with 650B for more gear change adjustability, but I don't want to shorten the trail of the fork with the smaller wheel size. That will all come in the next week or so.
EDIT: Cal, I'll be running 42/17 as standard on this Raleigh.
Phil
I posted an appeal to the classic & vintage pool of knowledge on Bike Forums to see f I could glean more information about model, year, and location of production; we'll see what info I get in the next week or so.
I'm being held up by Velo Orange Enterprise rims being out of stock everywhere and on back-order with my LBS distributor. That rim has a ~15mm high brake track, much larger than average rims, which is a feature I want in order to give me the most adjustability forward and aft for gear changes.
I have yet to finally decide on things like seatpost, stem, handlebars, calipers and brake levers. I need to get the crankset on this, then measure from the bottom pedal stroke to various points in space in order to compare against the cockpit measurements of my Miyata 610. Then I need to get abuilt 700c wheel with a tire on it in the rear dropout to see what kind of brake reach I'll need. As I haven't yet built my wheelset, I can still choose to go with 650B for more gear change adjustability, but I don't want to shorten the trail of the fork with the smaller wheel size. That will all come in the next week or so.
EDIT: Cal, I'll be running 42/17 as standard on this Raleigh.
Phil
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