Hello, first post here. I hope if you help me it won't be my last...

A friend has given me an old Rayleigh road bike. It's night time now, so you'll have to wait til tomorrow to see a picture of it. However, it currently doesn't have any gears and they're something I'd prefer! It's got a rear cogset but no front/ rear derailleur. I'd prefer to just restore the old gears instead of just putting some brand new ones on, but I don't really know how hard it'll be...

So, just how complicated will this be? I've read a couple of articles on the net and it's made me realise I know barely anything about bikes. Would it be hard to the parts for such an old bike?

Thanks in advance!

Welcome, timsinger. Some older parts are surprisingly easy to get, but without knowing more it's hard to say. Do you know the model of the bike? Any idea how old it is?

First off, welcome to bikeforums.

It's not really a matter of being difficult to do. Your question is too general and we need help narrowing things down. You could find a number of different Suntour components affordably to put something nice together.


Still there are so many factors:

-Indexed shifting or Friction
-How many speeds, what is your frame's rear spacing.
-downtube shifters? Stem Shifters?
-Freehub or cassette
and on and on and on!

This is a bit confusing; you say it has no gears but it has a rear cogset. Could this bike be a Raleigh 3 speed with a Sturmey Archer hub? Perhaps a Sports or a Sprite?

I Think maybe what he means is that there's a rear wheel from an older 5/10 speed or something. Perhaps this bike used to be a 5/10 speed or perhaps the rear wheel was trashed and someone put a random spare wheel they had on it just to make it ridable.

As others have said, we need more details. Are there one or two chain rings on the front? Is there a little metal ring on the rear dropout below/behind where the wheels axle slides in - something that looks like a rear derailleur would bolt on?

Pictures of the rear axle and the crank like this would really be helpful

Hi timsinger. Can I call you tim?

So, just for the sake of repeating, let's start with large clear pictures of the "drive" side of the bike (like SJX has posted). Include, if you can, pics of whatever controls are currently on the handlebars, the brakes, and any decals, such as a model name. Also, it might be useful to know the size of wheels you have (the tire size, e.g., 27 X 1-1/4, or 700c). Get a pic of the rear hub as well as the cogset so that we can tell if the rear wheel is original.

Folks here can probably help you get set up ... maybe similar to the original spec if you want.

If you need help with understanding the terms people use, you can ask here or try the helpful glossary at sheldonbrown.com.

Hopefully, we can id the model and the approx year, and maybe help you

In case you haven't found this yet, let me introduce you to our hero, Sheldon Brown, RIP;
https://sheldonbrown.com/retroraleighs/index.html