Tessou

Boy, is this a headache out of the gate. Good solid frame, original components... but the previous owner (who very fairly, as you'll see very soon, called himself an amateur mechanic) made some mistakes getting this poor beauty "roadworthy". I'll leave a guess as to how much I paid for it to your imagination.



This is a 1975 Raleigh Rapide Mixte I recently picked up for my wife as she's been asking me to find her a good road bike. The serial number reveals that it's Malaysian-built. Let's note the problems one by one, and imagine my headache getting worse as I found each one as soon as I brought it into the workshop.

1. The handlebars are over-rotated. The bar ends are nowhere near parallel to the ground.

2. Brakes are WAY too far forward. Wife had to bend her wrists far out of comfortable range to get to the brakes.

3. Bar tape is cheap and wrapped "reverse", so that continued handling and pressure on the bar would roll the tape off. Steam is starting to shoot from my ears at this point.

4. The brakes are reversed! I understand that this was a fad back in the old days, but it's dreadfully confusing to a new rider that has never had time on a proper road bike setup.

5. The rear derailleur mount is bent. So the bike was dropped at some point. Not the end of the world by itself, but the derailleur wasn't exactly 100% on track due to this.

6. Front derailleur is mounted too high on the tube. It was catching the chain, but not all the time and never very well. Getting the chain to shift into the big ring with that setup took a lot of jiggling back and forth.

7. Brakes pads are fried. As in, they look like the original pads. Come on, guy! Pads aren't going to last 35+ years unless it's a museum piece.

8. Now let's get to the obvious one. The rims were painted a lovely shade of light blue, either with house paint or krylon or something else equally horrible and incorrect for the artistic venture of painting bike rims. Why is this terrible? The bubbly, slick paint means the already shredded brake pads have nothing to grab onto reliably. The bike takes roughly a week and a half to come to a full stop from cruising speed.

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I bought it a week ago and have been slowly cracking at it. The brakes have been reverted back to "normal" form and new brake pads were installed. The derailleurs have been set to their original locations, mechanically corrected for efficiency as needed (the rear needed it badly, front not as much), and lubricated to hell and back. I spent about two hours yesterday slowly removing the paint from the sidewalls with a flathead and some light sanding (whereupon I found that the front wheel is chock full o' rust). I left the paint in the middle as it would be a royal pain to get all of it out and I'd have to take the wheel apart to do so. It got dark and cold before I could get to work on the handlebar issues, so that will be handled later today. She's getting new, non-cheap bar tape in a more flattering color, so I have wrapping the bars to look forward to as the final step (I love wrapping bar tape).

It's rideable at this point, just not comfortably. My goal is to have it complete by the end of today, so I can put it behind me and surprise the wife with it a few days ahead of Easter. I'll put up some photos of the finished product as soon as I can.

EddyR

All the things you mentioned I see all the time. They are just personal adjustments. Just replace the wheels with some used ones from CL. You can buy a entire bike for $50 and use the wheels and put those blue ones one the loaner and sell it as is. Or get some aluminum rimed wheels so the bike will stop. It is all part of the learning curve. Welcome to the world of used vintage bikes. Why did you buy the bike with painted rims?
Ed

Tessou

I bought it with the rims as they were because I believed (correctly) that I could remove the paint, or at least the strip impeding the brakes, and make it roadworthy. The paint came off pretty easily so I didn't have to buy new rims as I feared I might have to. Nobody sells bike parts on CL very often around here, sadly, or else I would have taken that route.

I got the bike because the frame was too good to pass up, rims or no rims. No cracks or bends, original paint, decals and headbadge. Mixte frames are difficult to find around here. There are a ton of step-throughs but only a handful of mixtes, and my wife really wanted one since she's short and can't find a small standard frame road bike.

sirupate

Brake pads, yup, been there on my 74 Raleigh. The bike was almost dangerous to ride with the original pads. They had very little use, but seemed to have hardened with the passage of time.

Find some appropriate Kool Stop pads for your Raleigh. That should be much better. Most of the rest is just minor adjustments or personal taste. Hope your wife loves her new ride.

Tessou

Old bar tape removed.


Front derailleur reset to correct position. Suntour Spirit, works great.


Rear derailleur retuned correctly, dropout un-bent. Unknown Suntour-for-Raleigh model.


Right before popping the brake cables and relocating the brakes higher on the bars.


Brakes in their new location. A bit higher than I would like, but this isn't for me nor my riding comfort, so I can't complain.


Grippy, white plastic tape was chosen from the box. It was this or cork (which I have on the BStone), but cork is expensive and didn't feel right.


Bike complete, with the family's traditional electrical tape on the bar ends. Wife loves it to bits after a short ride, so I get enchiladas tonight.


Making friends with my beloved Miyata 110, which had the rear tire trued earlier today after an encounter with a pothole.


Not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon, all said and done.