Originally Posted by
WhaleOil
Somewhere I saw a page where folks all wore tweed and period clothing AND Raleighs or other English bikes.....I wish I remembered the page.....
Here's what you want -- 3-speeds only, no lycra allowed (already full for 2008):
http://www.3speedtour.com/
I can understand people being in love with Schwinns, but I have to admit that I'm partial to Raleighs, as a mass-produced bike type. (Peugeot is a whistle I apparently cannot hear). If you do intend to pursue an interest in Raleighs, I will be honest up front: one of the most difficult (though not totally insuperable) problems, especially with the Raleigh-built 3-speed and low-end road models like Grand Prix, right up through the 70s, is the "dreaded 26 TPI threading disease". For reasons not altogether understandable from this remove, Raleigh chose to equip many of these bikes with 26 threads-per-inch bottom brackets ( BBs of non-standard width, too) and steerer tubes (headset). This makes upgrading either difficult or very expensive (as in Phil Wood), and simple parts replacement a hair-pulling experience for many. It's weird, because Raleigh built most of their more expensive models using BSC threading standards -- 24 TPI for large-diameter items, which (thanks to the Japanese adoption of these, and the subsequent popularity of Japanese bikes and components) are now (for the most part) the ISO standards, now the most popular threading standard for bikes.