cudak888 

I spent yesterday afternoon taking care of a month's worth of work on my men's '51 Sports "C" Tourist, after receiving a pair of important packages bearing the following goodies:

A cut-off Raleigh Colt headtube, bearing the proper aluminum Raleigh badge (Thanks Larry!),
and
a 1950's-era Raleigh crankset, handlebars and handlebar stem (Thank you Neal!)

Needless to say, I got the '51 in a ridable state by early evening, and took it out for a spin.

Sure enough, someone before me boogered up the 4-speed hub internals, so that will have to be inspected later on this week, and I'll also have to hunt down a pair of good-condition '50s Raleigh brake levers (the one you see on it currently is a poor-condition piece from a '56 Super Lenton. Yes, that Super Lenton).

Despite the hub malfunctions, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Enough so that I didn't get back in time to take photos in decent lighting, hence the reason I'm presenting you the poor photos below. They'll serve until I take some better photos tomorrow.

Threw in some photos of my matching ladies '51 as well.

Enjoy!

-Kurt

cudak888 

Pictures are back up.

-Kurt

cudak888 

New photo set!

Enjoy!

-Kurt

roughrider504

How are the 4 speed not working? i thought they were bulletproof.

The brooks and that paint look great together!

cudak888 

Turns out the previous owner had the hub cones tightened too much. Don't know why it would cause it to malfunction, but that was the culprit, nevertheless. Got it working this afternoon.

Paint has held up pretty good for being 55 years old, eh? The Brooks is a near-NOS '80s piece.

Take care,

-Kurt

FlatTop

A fine looking steed. That must have been an intensive session.
Are those tires the Duro brand that you have mentioned?

cudak888 

Yes, it was an intensive session - a few hours, at least, not to mention the installation of both headset and BB loose bearings. Went off without a hitch though!

Those are the 26X1-3/8" Duros, yes. They aren't as white in the photo as they could be, I've yet to clean the grease & oil marks off of them.

Take care,

-Kurt

pastorbobnlnh 

Kurt,

A very nice job! But that poor accent light. Did 50s era Sports not come with kickstands? I would think they would be mandatory for proper English riding.

cudak888 

The accent lights held up fine. They also so happened to be the only thing handy to hold them up.

Both the men's and lady's machines have kickstands - the ladies, an original Raleigh Industries piece, the men's, an English XPT that couldn't hold it up on concrete if it had to. The Raleigh kickstand does a good job, but it couldn't hold the machine over the grass.

Take care,

-Kurt

pastorbobnlnh 

I wondered if the grass was the culprit. Having spent some time in Florida, I know that St. Augustine grass can be deceptively thick, and the sand can be loose underneath. A kickstand would never hold.

cudak888 

Thick it is, although ours is packed down quite thick, with no sand.

Have a look at the first few photos of my Paramount in the "NR Crankset" thread for an example of how thick ours has been at times - note that the rims are buried at least 2" from the top of the grass blades.

I've been successful in standing various bikes on our St. Augustine grass out front before (the silver '80 Raleigh Sports photos, for instance), but the shallow angle of the '50s Raleigh Industries kickstand bored itself straight down into the dirt.

All the best,

-Kurt