stevegor

Sorry it's not a folder, but.....
451 rims, 5 speed Derailluer, drop bars, tiny frame....small as a RSW 16, all genuine and original....picking it up soon for $20, I will put pics on my flickr site so someone can identify it for me.

larryfeltonj

You may want to post the links to the photos in the Utility Cycling and Classic and Vintage forums as well. The Utility Cycling forum had a thread on the old Raleighs, and the Classic and Vintage forum posts images of old catalogs.

LittlePixel

Sounds fun... Are you saying it's basically a scaled down tourer for girls? There are some nice frames to be had in the 80s road-bike-for-kids genre. Shame it's a genre that doesn't really exist. I had a 520 wheeled 'racer' back in the day and it was excellent. All kids want nowadays is a heavy 'y' framed bruiser mountain bike. Where's the elegance in that?

stevegor

L.P.,

I don't know if this is a mini tourer or not, but it is too small to be modded like a R20 so an adult couldn't ride it. This bike looks like 60/70's era as it has those suicide levers attached to the brake levers for using when you're gripping the flat part of the bars. It has 2 sloping down tubes, fenders and the drop bars look like a old shape, also the 451 rims are more narrow than the R20's 451 rim and they look like a better quality. The tyres are a narrow Michelin type, and the cranks are very short.... I've never seen anything like it before.

LittlePixel

Sounds fab - looking forward to seeing pictures!

stevegor

Just put pics on www.flickr.com/photos/stevegor

This is a Raleigh Prima with 451 rims, which normally doesn't come this small, usually they come with 24" wheels and traditional flat bars, not drop bars. So can someone please tell me what I've got here?

LittlePixel

Looks like a scaled down 'adult' bike for kids. It's cute!

norfolk bolt

I saw 2 raleigh 20's last week, blue, in pretty good nick for 65 pounds each at a bike shop below the elephant and castle railway station. If anyones interested.

stevegor

Lately, I've been bidding on R20 folders on eBay in my state...seems like EVERYBODY wants one and the prices are getting TOO high for me, looks like I need to stay local and chance upon a cheap one at a garage sale or recycle yard etc. That's how I got our 2 R20s for $15 and $20au.

LittlePixel

If we want to keep them all for ourselves and affordable we maybe shouldn't talk so much, extolling their myriad virtues...

stevegor

L.P.,

I agree completely.....so let's keep it quiet ....I'll grab the R20s in Oz, (Butt out, Jur ) and you get the U.K. ones...as for the USA...we'll make it a free for all.....1st in gets 'em!!

BTW, I'm waiting on an 8spd S/A to arrive for Helen's R20 and am about to get braze ons for V brakes for back and front......should be nice.

EvilV

So true. My eldest son rode 68 miles in a day on a 520 racer when he was eight years old. It was part of a three day tour during which we rode 144 miles. That was twenty years ago. Now the son of a friend of mine has a hugely solid, thick tubed, horrible, dual suspension, mountain bike that he can hardly pedal five miles and I find too heavy lifting over the junk in his mother's garage. The bike Tom had, weighed about 20 pounds. Jack's is nearer 35 or 40, I'd guess. A horrible, horrible bike. I tried to advise him away from it when it was bought, but his mother just said, 'That's the one he wants, I'll buy it.' I knew it was cr*p and just had to bite my tongue.

EvilV

I don't know about the new addition, but you've got a nice collection there - that's what you've got mate.

stevegor

Thanks....I think....'cos this is becoming an increasing sickness, all thanks to the likes of Jur, LittlePixel, yourself and the rest of you crazy crazy folder folk....I'm finding the only remedy will be to buy another R20 to calm the shattered nerves.

EvilV

It is a sickness. I just spent a ton of money on a Pashley Moulton TSR30 - maybe three weeks ago, and this morning, having looked at that wasp bike, I found myself browsing ebay looking for R20s. Then I thought, what will the good lady say? and shut the browser window.

stevegor

EvilV,

By shutting the browser window you have shown great inner fortitude....or a wise awakening to your SWMBO's decreasing patience in things of bicycling
Of late, my SWMBO is voicing her concerns of my eBay bike parts buying fever, but I reassured her that these purchases were to update and therefore continue the long life of my menagerie of bikes.....like getting the 26" tandem the way I want it....like putting an Ultegra triple crankset on my Italian steel frame roadie so I can climb mountains easier...like going all out on mods for the R20s....like dreaming of a Rohloff hub for my MTB....like planning a 24" wheel R20 conversion...and now YOU tell me about the Moulton??
Heck.....this is a sickness.

EvilV

LOL

Mine keeps pointing out that I can only ride one bike a time and that some of them (the ones with big ugly wheels) have never been out in the sunshine at all this summer. I would try some circus antics with two at a time, but I'd fall off and scratch them.

stevegor

I think it is good to have a different bike for different circumstances ie: A MTB for the obvious, a modern roadie for bunch rides, an older roadie for wet days, a folder for commuting etc etc, the answer is different for everyone, but 1 bike for each day of the week sounds about right!!
Once while riding a local bike path on my R20 I met an old guy who was amazed at the Wasp, said he used to collect bikes and fix'em up for friends and local kids etc, but had got rid of them. He would have happily GIVEN them all to me if he had met me before that time......all 350+ of them......Now how about 1 bike for each day of the year?