Originally Posted by russdog63
What can I say? First of all, I have a real hard time being on the same page as cudak888 with the quality of '84-86 Raleigh USA frames. The first decent(and all I can say is decent) bike I ever had in my life was a 84 "Racing USA" Raliegh Gran Prix. Raliegh Propriatary 555 tubing and dropouts. The first thing I blew through was the factory built wheels. At the time I bought the bike, I was a college student in Pullman Washington...
It was during the hill intervals that I would snap the pulling spokes on the freewheel side of the rear wheel. After I blew through the factory wheels I had custom made wheels made from Campy Record hubs and Mavic MA 40 rims (36 spoke). The next thing to go on the bike was the right rear dropout.
cudak888 you can have the Asian built Raleighs. You have no idea what a real frame is.
Also, if you are getting that much flex in a frame, it's garbage or you are way too big for it.
I believe you're being a bit harsh to both the OP (it still doesn't answer his question - if flex were an indicator of garbage, then you'd better start dumping all your Alan aluminum frames at my door) and the Raleigh USA frames themselves. Considering their position as framesets on mid-range machines (and I note,
frames), they are exceptionally well done.
May I ask if you remember whether your frame was marked as being Made In Japan or Made In Taiwan? If not, do you remember how many bottle positions it had? The Japanese frames have dual waterbottle mounts, the Tawanese only have it on the downtube.
I have two of the Japanese examples, and one of the Taiwanese, but have not been able to experience the Taiwanese frame as much, as it is not my frame size. Both of my Japanese examples are very stiff and have no indication of any excessive frame stress (tearing, cracking, movement) on any one joint of the frameset.
I find it odd that the dropout did snap on your machine, hence why I'm curious as to it being Taiwanese or Japanese.
I'll concur with you that the original wheelsets to these machines were less then spectacular, I'll grant you that. Heck, what do you expect out of galvinized spokes, and with the Grand Prix, cheap Araya rims? That's what they came with - hence why my '86 is equipped with Mavic G 40 rims and Campagnolo Triomphe hubs laced with DT's.
My '84 Competition came with Araya shallow aero pattern though, hence why I'm sticking with those. Haven't had any trouble with them so far, and curiously enough, that's on the old galvinized spokes and Sunshine hubs. I plan to replace them with a set of NOS Arayas, same as the originals, DT's, and Campagnolo hubs, when I get the chance.
P.S.: I shall have one of my 60cm Guerciotti framesets built up sooner or later. I'll let you know if I notice any particular difference between the Guerciotti and the Raleighs.
Take care,
-Kurt