Sir_Name 

This is always a good time.



Stuffing removed:


Passing through receipt inspection:


The goods:




I'm going to strip this back down for a clean and proper assembly soon, but new toy syndrome kicked in and I had to get it together for a look. I'm throwing all the parts from another bike over to this one and should have it together by the end of this coming week. Out of time for now, more to follow soon.

Big thanks to Gugie!!

(...the bike is balanced on the stand, not clamped in...)

spock345

The nervex lugs and headbadge make me think that this one is earlier than 73.

schwinnderella

isn't that head badge 71?

gugie 

Looks like you didn't need any instructions on putting Humpty Dumpty back together again!

spock345

After referring to Sheldon's raleigh site, yes. It seems to use their anniversary head badge that was used in 1970 or 1971. Retro Raleighs: The International

Overall though I am rather envious of OP. That is a sharp looking bike. I see the bike also has the rapid taper chainstays, those give really good tire clearance. I have a full centimeter on either side of a 30mm tire on my competition.

gugie 

Hmmm, Sir_Name, check the serial number on the BB. For some reason I thought it was a '73, I don't have an old pic, the guy I bought it from said it was a 73 and I never bothered to check!

Glad it arrived safe and sound.

spock345

In 1973 Raleighs out of the Carlton factory (except for the Gran Sport and Professional) used capella lugs. Which seem to be a holdover from before Raleigh bought Carlton.
They make 1973 Raleighs easy to identify. The international that year also seems to have used a lighter green. I prefer the earlier, darker shades though.

nlerner

Nice Intl! It's a repaint and the top tube decal isn't consistent with the '70/'71 models, so the serial # should be revealing.

bulldog1935

perfect frame (and especially fork) for that project - good job, and well thought-out

gugie 

Hmmm, nobody recognizes it yet?

gugie 

Not all of them had capella lugs. You can find Nervex on some, and the Super Tourers of that vintage used what I think is a bocoma lugset

Sir_Name 

Thanks guys, according to St. Sheldon the ser# F507 places this as a '71. Velocals has decals, so I'll get those on at some point, maybe over the winter. I do like the look of the '71 decals a lot.

This bike also has unusually long chainstays for an Int'l at 43cm if I'm remembering correctly (is this unique to '71?). That and the rapid taper shape allows this to fit 42mm tires over the 38s that fit on the bike this is replacing.

Sir_Name 

Nope! This was a fun puzzle. you did fantastic work on the racks.
Thank you - all of the credit goes to gugie. I'm just lucky to have similar taste and fit! I'll post a writeup a bit later, but the short of it is that I had been wanting something exactly like this for a while. I had figured it'd be years before I found something that checked all of the boxes. If I were to spec a custom frame, this would be it for the most part.
I was hoping you'd post those pics up. They tell the story far better than I could. Please share any info you'd like about the bike and your modifications!
---
The racks are all Gugie Specials (until he comes up with a name for his fabrication efforts). I'll post up some detail shots soon, I think he did an outstanding job on them, and they're STOUT. The rear is telescoping, for lack of a better word, similar to a trombone slide. Front and rear are stainless, and the low riders are cro-mo and will get chrome plating at some point. Those will go on for any camping adventures, the front and rears will stay on permanently. It should be fairly easy to pick out the frame modifications he made as well.

Sir_Name 

A bit of background.






I built the above a couple of winters ago as an experiment in 650b. I bought the bike in stock condition a few years prior to that – I forget why I had initially stripped the bike of its components, but it sat as a frameset for years. A few quick measurements and I determined it was good enough for a conversion as a way to satisfy my curiosity w/o going overboard on expenditures (ha!).

The Windsor is a 25” frame, which gives me a good comfy French fit, but it can be a bit cumbersome off road, especially in slower technical sections. The frame was built for 27” wheels and tires, so switching to 650b required some seriously long reach brakes at the rear – Weinmann Vainquier 900 centerpull with a whopping 90mm of reach and light file work to position the pads just so on the rear rim. The fork is a replacement as the original has a badly rusted fork tip - a Weinmann 750 works up front without bottoming out the pads, but the different spacing front and rear kept me from bothering with fenders. The low-trail geometry with the replacement fork is great, but maybe just a bit far toward the low end of low trail. The geometry, in concert with the ‘adequate’ brake performance, never really inspired confidence on fast descents. I’ll take measurements from the Windsor frameset for comparison at some point.

About a month ago I got in contact with gugie to see about repairing a damaged Centurion Pro Tour 15 I have and asked about the possibility of moving the canti posts to accommodate 650b at the same time (something I would never consider on that bike if it wasn’t already damaged).Well, after going over the damage we agreed the frame is as good as wall art, but he mentioned that I should let him know if I’m looking for anything in particular – maybe he could help out…

Well.

The fit of the Raleigh should be a bit better than theWindsor (though I probably won’t get the bars quite as high without a taller stem), the geometry and cantis should be an improvement in descending confidence, and the fact that this fits 42s versus the 38s on the Windsor make this a great fit for what I saw could be improved upon with the Windsor experiment. Plus itcomes with the beautiful ‘50s Lefol fenders, the custom racks, and it’s modified to accept internal wiring for lights. Excellent. As I said above, if I were to spec a custom frame to replace the Windsor these would be the important design elements.

The Bike of Theseus:

For now I’ll move the parts from the Windsor over to the Raleigh (now with Suntour XC Pro der's versus the Deerhead pictured), but am scheming the next build on this frameset. Fromwhat I’ve been reading, 11 speed drivetrains are more or less interchangeable wrt sprocket spacing at the rear, and with the prevalence of 1x drivetrains, there are some pretty monster cassettes available. I think 11 speed Athena levers to an XT cassette via a 10sp campy long cage / Athena triple rear mech. will get the job done. Up front will probably be a 50.4 BCD double, either vintage or the Sun XCD. Figuring out the exact hardware combo and gearing without excessive overlap will take some thought. The next build will also include a generator front wheel and an Edelux II or similar.

I’m glad to hear from gugie that this bike has gone to the BQ Unmeeting, and he’s pleased to know that I’ll be pedaling it out to FrenchFender Day. In my opinion he has made this a very special bike, and I’m delighted that he offered it up to me. Thanks again!

nlerner

Nice! Mine is also a '71, and I was going to try it with 650B wheels, but decided just the other day to build it up as my two-speed townie bike with a SRAM auto-shifting hub and upright bars. I took it to work yesterday, and it's lots of fun to ride. I need to take some pics.

Sir_Name 

That sounds like a fun build, it'd be nice to do something similar with the Windsor, maybe IGH and 27s for winter riding, but I should probably just offload it for a few bucks. Don't think the frame will fit in the BoC. Any chance you know how long the chainstays are on yours? From gugie's research and the tiny bit I've gotten through it seems the CSs on this one are atypically long (43.8cm).

Vonruden

Sweet, can't wait to see the finished product!

nlerner

Well, I'm not bragging about long chain stays or anything (right, @photogravity?), but I just measured my '71 Int'l and they look to be 44.5cm measured to the center of the dropout.

gugie 

My long mystery of the International chainstays is semi-solved. When I thought it was a '73 (should just looked at the serial number instead of taking the seller's word for it) I measured the chainstays, and everyone else's '73 was signficantly shorter (@Charles Wahl, for example), and 42mm wide tires just wouldn't fit their frame. My 73 Competition (confirmed by serial number!) has the long stays. This leads me to believe that Raleigh shortened the chainstays somewhere between 1971 and 1973.

But I do think that anytime you start with "well, I'm not bragging..." well, you are.

At any rate, Neal, your International would be a great 650b conversion candidate. Your bikes seem to get reimagined every now and then, perhaps a little bend bend, braze braze, wink wink, he said knowingly is in your future...

long john

One nice bike very classy.

Charles Wahl

For the record, my International frame is a '74, WD4. 73 cm chainstays.

nlerner

You know, in my urge to purge some of the fleet this summer, I thought about letting the Int'l go, but instead I purged some of the lower end steel (a Super Course and a Dawes Galaxy) and will hold on to the Int'l. It did fit 650B x 38mm tires with plenty of room to spare (42 would likely work), but brake reach was pretty darn long. I fitted it with MAFAC Raids that you might be familiar with, and shoes had to be angled up in a way that would probably not ensure particularly good braking. So, yeah, some canti braze-ons would probably be required to make that work. Hmm. Peter Mooney is local to me and might take on that challenge if I were so inclined.

gugie 

Well, there you have it. Clearly Raleigh shrank the chainstays every year, little by little, saving pennies worth of metal and rt the same time could claim there bikes were lighter than last years model...😜

gugie 

Those RAIDS will fit great with brazed on posts and still have room for far tires and fenders. With all your bikes you should consider taking up brazing.

nlerner

I've definitely thought about it, and there are some local community ed classes available. I thought I might have had a possibility with an MIT mechanical engineering staff member some years back, but that fell through (not enough interest to run a class!). I even bought a cheap tube bender from Harbor Freight!