arex

Interesting. Am I wrong, or was that frame made for bigger wheels?

gster

Rwanda Bicycle

gster

Another

desconhecido 

Probably has those 597 mm rims that Schwinn was so fond of. That's good news and bad. Limited selection of tires by Kenda, but they are available and they are inexpensive. Don't have to debate whether the Panaracers are too fat or if the stripe on the Michelin looks weird or if the Schwalbes roll like they're lined with lead. Just get some Kendas and go riding.

Looks to be a good price if the bike's as nice as it shows in the picture, but it's probably heavier than a Raleigh Sports.

desconhecido 

I would think that the exact length would be a rather flexible figure..They just need to be long enough, excess length can be accounted for at the lever end.

I was trying to figure out what to do in your exact situation back in December when I acquired a couple 50s Raleigh 50s Sports. As it turned out, the cables on the bike I put back on the road were ok and the other bike has "issues". So, I haven't looked for a while, until today:

There is an ebay seller in Belfast, Maine offering pairs of those brake cables for "Mens Bikes" for $35 including shipping. The seller handle is wood-n-bikes and you can find the ads by searching for "Raleigh brake cable." I'll bet if you contacted the seller via an ebay question that you could get a measurement.

I've never bought anything from this seller, but the feedback is 100%

markk900

That is why, in spite of all the discussion, 4 of my recent builds/tire changes used Kendas.....

markk900

I measured 2 different bikes (both mens, one with Raleigh style one without) and got approximately the same length for each: 22-23" (wire length) for the front and 47-48" (wire length) for the rear. Had a quick look at ebay and there are much longer cables available but there are a few of the above length as well.

The cables wood-n-bikes sells look good but be careful - even though they are listed as "Raleigh Vintage" the ones I looked at had (interestingly) the "non-Raleigh" cable end but did include the adjuster and a soldered wire end, along with the piece that goes on the caliper arm. Also, for Canadian buyers they are way out of line - $43 for the pair plus $25 shipping....$68 for a pair of cables! I'll buy the $5 cables at the LBS and solder on some spoke nipples....

nlerner

I have a spare or two of those double-ended brake cables with white ribbed housing for rear brake. I can measure the length if someone is interested (and, if so, email me at lerner dot n AT gmail dot com). When I bought them a while back, I thought I was buying one, but it was actually one box full.

Those cables from wood-n-bikes don't look quite right: there's an extra pinch bolt attached (and one is missing some of the hardware).

PalmettoUpstate 

There were two vertically integrated bicycle manufacturers that bit the dust in the last quarter of the 20th century - Raleigh [Tube Industries] in England and Schwinn in the USA. Generally, yes, the light Schwinns may have weighed a little more than the light Raleighs. Either way, both brands were built for the long haul and you can't go wrong with either - assuming you are looking at a decent example. That bike in the Portland area is a "good un"....

PalmettoUpstate 

Noticed yesterday that this bike - which I had seen a few months ago - had become available and at a fair price.

Added it to the stable today.

desconhecido 

You're right, and my apologies for paying insufficient attention to detail. I don't know what's going on with those cables unless the pinch bolt is easily removable and those cables were made by Raleigh as "spares" for either the soldered or pinch bolt style brakes. Apparently, the seller has a box of them and they carry a Raleigh part number.

desconhecido 

Yeah, it looks good. I had one not so different from that one when I was in my late teens. It was either a late 50s or early 60s bike because I bought it from a guy who grew up across the street and he was eight or nine years older than I was. Can't remember what happened to it. It had chrome fenders.

Sometimes you have to have rules. VC, apparently, has a no derailleur claw rule. Now that the Schwinn Breeze has moved next door, I have a no Ashtabula crank rule. Kind of a stupid rule, when you think about it, as an Ashtabula is orders of magnitude easier to service than a cottered crank. But, rules are rules.

Not so many weeks ago I was riding my recently built Ciocc around and I encountered a guy riding a red Schwinn three-speed with chrome fenders. Bike looked like it hadn't had any recent maintenance, but I just commented to the guy that it looked like a good old bike and that I had one when young. He said it was a 74 model that he had acquired in 79. He said that it was the perfect bike for Houston. He was almost right. A Sports is the perfect bike for Houston.

Sixty Fiver

That is a Sekine road bike so yes, the original wheels were larger.

Narhay

I've been looking at one of these and am intrigued. How is the light, quality and standlight operation?

Sixty Fiver

The B&M light is quite good, it runs at 25 lux IIRC which is just fine for lower speed riding... it throws a fairly wide and well focussed beam.

Narhay

Would you be happy with this light and a tail light as your sole light in a city and on MUPs?

noglider 

@PalmettoUpstate, that reminds me of my ~1967 AMF Hercules.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/267340...7623875900107/

Sixty Fiver

Yep.

desconhecido 

Do these come out oriented correctly?

That's a nice fleet.

A feature of Raleigh step-through bikes, perhaps not all of them, but a couple that we have and the ones you show, is that the head tube appears to be about the length of that on a 23" Sports, but the distance between the head tube and the top of the seat tube is about the same as on a 21" Sports. I just went out to the garage and measured both the 74 Sprite and the 51 Sports and compared them to the 21" 79 Sports. The head tubes are long, but the imaginary top tube length is not. This geometry is well-liked at out house.

Your ivory Sprite looks to have the same stem as our 74 Sprite. On ours, the stem and bars are steel and the clamp diameter is somewhere around 24 mm -- I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget and promptly lost the note. So, replacing the bars will probably require replacing the stem. You could triple or quadruple the investment in that Sprite with some nice alloy Nitto stuff.

On our Sprite, I removed the steel rimmed wheels and put on a set of alloy rimmed wheels with QRs. The bike rarely gets ridden at night, so the dyno wasn't really providing a benefit, and the alloy rims , well, they have all the alloy rim benefits. The wheels I put on are about 35 years old and still round and true. Machine built wheels with Mavic rims, Forte hubs, and SS spokes that I bought from Performance for about $50 sometime in the late 80s.

slowtostart

Thank you, yes, they did. (FWIW, I can program a Garmin!)

I am trying to justify keeping the Sprite. I also have 2 other Sports, a 1956 carmine red and a very nice 1972 in green. The 1972 is the rain bike since it has a coaster brake. The years are based on hub dates.

The Sprite needs a makeover. If she doesn't stay, she will be passed along. I'll think of it as an intervention.

desconhecido 

So, there's a Craigslist ad that offers a 60s Raleigh "Sport" with headlight and pump. Note very good pictures, but looks interesting so I made arrangements to go look. From the pictures, I'm guessing early 70s. (You know you've got a problem when you think you can tell late 60s from early 70s from bad pictures.)

So I get there and a very nice young lady meets me on the porch with the bicycle and I start to look it over. The decals are a little different from the Sports and it has a dynohub and I look at the left side of the fork and it has a fork lock. I said, "that's strange, I've seen Sports bikes with dynohubs before, but never with a fork lock (except in this thread). Almost looks like a Superbe." Of course, she doesn't know what I'm talking about and says, "No, that's my grandmother's bike and she says it's a Sports." Looked a little more and see that it says "Superbe" right on it. I explained that the Sports and Superbe are very similar bikes. She takes the money, I take the bike. Everybody's happy.

Some of the chrome looks pretty nasty, and the rack has a lot of rust, but the frame's paint and decal set don't look too bad. Stem is different from the Sports stems and it has a Schwinn mattress on it which will need to go. Right side pedal appears to be cross threaded. Might answer the age old question: in a contest between a steel pedal and a steel crank, who wins?

Checked the serial number and AW stamping and the hub (smooth housing) is January 71 and the SN indicates a 71.

Here's a couple picks after it followed me home.

Looks better in the pictures than in real life, but don't we all?

Sixty Fiver

Sorted out the collection of SA parts that were living in tubs, trays, and tins... and there is still more to sort through here as I have been picking up old shop stocks for a long time.

As far as I know I am the only shop, besides our co-op that is equipped to overhaul our beloved 3 speeds.

adventurepdx

Except that bike you posted is from Seattle! Or more specifically Enumclaw, a far-flung eastside suburb.

But yeah I know, Seattle and Portland might as well be the same city to a resident of the Tar Heel State.

adventurepdx

Yep, as sixtyfiver notes, this is a decent light, good for city biking and use on MUPs. I have to say that any modern B+M LED headlamp with standlight is good. There are definitely better lights than this, but unless you're going to do lots and lots of riding in dark places all night, the RetroTec will be plenty of light!

Narhay

I hope you'll be able to take this one back from the brink.