Knowing that I was going to be in Atlanta for an SME training session back in January, I thought about bidding on a '74 Raleigh Grand Prix from that area. The seller would allow me to pick up the bike, saving me his shipping charge of $95.00. If I won, I'd just toss the bike carrier in the back of my SUV for the trip home with the bike.

On the night the auction was to end, I checked e-Bay and saw that there were two bids on the bike. Throwing caution to the wind, I placed my bid. A few hours later I checked the auction and I had won. Hard to believe that my $10.00 bid would have been enough. Still hgarder to believe is that the winning bid was actually $1.29. Yep, $1.29!! Mybe I should have mentioned that when I placed my bid, the high bid at that tme, after two bids had already been placed, was $1.04.

After some wrangling with the seller; he changed his mind about allowing me to pick it up, perhaps because of the low price and/or that he wouldn't get any "shipping costs". When I told him I had an e-mail from him OKing the pick up and that I had a friend close to him who could pick it up anytime, he relented. So, a few days later, I was off to Atlanta and the bike was in the hands of my friend.

The bike is way too tall for me, so my thought is to bring it back to life and find a new home for it. The red paint is quite faded, but I have several sources where I can have the frame stripped and powder coated at no cost to me. The front and rear derailleurs are in excellant condition; I'm thinking that they may have been added to the bike recently. The picture of the FD shows why I think this is the case. The Simplex DT shifters will need to go, the brake calipers do not match, and the cloth wrap on the handlebars has seen it days, as had the duct tape used to secure the cloth.

I've added pictures for your viewing pleasure. I've done nothing to the bike to date aside from washing the road salt off of the frame. I had to drive back to St. Louis through Kentucky a couple of days after they had that killer ice storm.

Let me know what you guys think.