Slowly I am restoring an early 70's Raleigh Sprite. This is one of those Sprite models where the serial number isn't much help in dating the bicycle, but it does have a rather distictive chain guard that is best described as half a hockey stick. Anyhow, the bicycle has a single chain ring and 3-speed Huret (Allvit) rear deraileur. My question concerns the thumb shifter. It is attached to the stem (doesn't seem right to me) and is made by Falcon (also doesn't seem like original equipment to me). The thumb shifter is made of pot metal (I think), looks pretty cheap for something on a Raleigh bicycle and again, doesn't seem like original equipment. Any idea what company made the original equipment thumb shifter or is the one I have it? What about where it is mounted?

Terry

I would guess the original was a Huret single stem-shifter. Here's an over-priced example currently on eBay:

https://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Huret-Al...3%3A1|294%3A50

Do you really have a 3-speed gear cluster in the rear or a 5-speed?

Neal

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Neal:
As the kids say, "My bad". It is very definitely a five-speed. I checked out the shifter on ebay and it is definitely over priced.

Terry

I have one of those off of a later Sprite. It was on the stem and it wasn't anything fancy but it's not crap either. I'll try to remember take a picture of it tonight. You can have it if you want it, PM me.

Terry, those come up fairly frequently, particularly from the eBay seller retrobicyclesupply. You might just drop him a note to see if he has one though it's not listed.

Or you could go with a Shimano 5-speed stem shifter, like this one:

https://cgi.ebay.com/Shimano-5-Speed-...3286.m20.l1116

Neal