Originally Posted by
oneclick
That seat looks damaged to me; the second pic seems to show a mark just above the place where the corner of the seat either has something in it or was not square to begin with.
The first pic seems to show a ridge about 2mm above the flat ending in a similar mark, and it might be in the second pic as well.
I wonder if a race-too-small was attempted once, making the mark and the ridge, then was removed and a race on the proper size fitted.
Some crown races have a relieved section just above the flat face, to allow for bad seat corners.
If you had such a one and then tried a race without such relief, it might well stop short of the bottom.
Hmmm, interesting. To the best of my knowledge, the bike came with the original headset, so unless Raleigh attempted to fit the wrong race on there when assembling, there should be no damage from that. I'm wondering if Raleigh had some shoddy work and just beat the crap out of the race until it fit and called it a day, and now that it's been removed the problem is back. I'lll take a look at the area in the 2nd photo closely again when I get back from work and let you know if I see anything unusual there-I did not at a glance, but I also admit I don't have the most trained eye!