aka Tom Reingold
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: New York, NY, and High Falls, NY, USA
Posts: 40,509
Bikes: 1962 Rudge Sports, 1971 Raleigh Super Course, 1971 Raleigh Pro Track, 1974 Raleigh International, 1975 Viscount Fixie, 1982 McLean, 1996 Lemond (Ti), 2002 Burley Zydeco tandem
Mentioned: 511 Post(s)
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Answering for Iowegian, in case he's not coming back for a while...
Once you get the stem out, screw the headset locknut off. Examine the steerer tube. Is it flat on one side, or is there a vertical slot in it? If the former, there's a good chance it's a French frame.
French cranksets were common on many non-French bikes, especially English bikes. England didn't make many bike parts, except Raleigh, and those parts were only installed on Raleighs.
35x1 means the bottom bracket cups are 35 mm in diameter and have 1mm pitch threads (1mm between each thread).
French bikes used stems with a 22mm diameter stem. Most other bikes use stems of 22.2mm. Yes, really, a 0.2m (1/5mm) difference.
A vernier caliper is a good tool for these measurements. Mine goes down to 0.1mm.
And yes, RHT stands for right-hand-thread, so it means righty tighty.
Lots of jargon to learn, huh!?