Scarbo

I hope this is not terribly off topic; but I have to ask. Bulldog, I think you know that I recently fixed up my dad's old 1972 Raleigh Super Course and that I presented it back to him. Well, as it happens I have found somebody with a 70s-vintage Raleigh International that I'm thinking about buying. Can you please go into some of the differences between these two bikes. I'm more concerned with tubing and handling characteristics than I am about components. For example, did the International employ Reynolds 531? Thank you.

fietsbob

better to use the numbers steel companies do 1010, 1017 4130. etc. it actually refers to the alloy contents and %..

bulldog1935

hi friend, I somehow missed this question in post quotes - just now showing up.
SC is 531 straight gauge main triangle with TI2030 rear triangles and forks. The front fork has the lower offset (higher trail) geometry of Raleigh "race" bikes.

International is double-butted 531 on all tubes, with a 531 low-trail fork. IMO, this is not a bike for a big rear load because of flex in the main triangle. (i.e., this is not a touring bike, but just about the perfect sport touring bike or 700c rando). Handles great with a front load.

Both frames have about the same tire clearance in the rear triangles (32mm max), though the International chainstays are even rounder than the slightly oval SC chainstays.


Messy winter, and I installed my full fenders over the weekend. I was surprised to find the International fork has a few mm greater offset (lower trail) than my GP where I salvaged the Honjo fenders.
Still some work to tweak these out, including a shorter brake bridge mount and some new U-stays

drlogik 

If a steel bike is taken care of, it will last, in human terms, forever.

AlexCyclistRoch

Let's see; checking my fleet.......25 year old steel frame...good. 30 year old steel frame....good. 30 year old aluminum frame.....good. 38 year old 531 steel frame...good. 45 year old 1020 steel frame.....good.

Scarbo

The fact that the International features double-butted tubes makes this bike worth investigating, then. Thanks again for the info (as usual!).

bulldog1935

and you're welcome.

Fastfingaz

Now that we're on the subject,,, I have a 1972 Murray Phoenix 26,, it's a ten speed, that I removed the drops and installed a box handle bar it's heavy bike but rides really nice,,,, my question what type of steel would this bike be made of? O d of pipe is one inch,,,,

Stucky

Ha! I had a c.1976 Murray 10-speed when I was a kid. I put more miles on that bike than on any other bike I've ever owned- then or now. I'm not an egg-spurt on Murrays or anything...but I do believe that Murray used nothing but hi-ten gas-pipe on all of their bikes. Many department-store bikes of the era were rebadged Murrays.

EDIT: Found this on the Murray Wikipedia article::

"Most Murray bicycles were for the youth market, often featuring one-piece steel Ashtabula cranksets and internally brazed frames using inexpensive seamed or straight-gauge steel tubing. These low-cost parts and materials undercut the prices of Murray's competition, selling millions of bicycles (often with retailer names) to department stores, hardware stores, and general retailers. Schrekengost styled more than 100 mostly youth bicycles for Sears, Western Auto, Firestone Tire, and other retailers, including the Spaceliner, Western Flyer, and Firestone. By modifying chain guards, luggage carriers, lighting, handlebars, and truss rods, Schrekengost gave each bicycle a distinctive look while retaining the same welded tube frame design.".

AlexCyclistRoch

Whatever 'gas' pipe seamed mild steel tubing was cheapest at the time......

Fastfingaz

I always knew that Murray was the commen mans bicycle but these bike with workmanship even the shifters about midway on the top tube has fancy designs on them , I'm sure whoever owed it back then was proud of it,,,,

fietsbob

A seamed tube can be further Drawn and Butted which really reworks the seam to make it as if seamless.
But costing less than punching a Hot hole in a billet and drawing it out..


Folding and re forging steel is how Japan made those Katana Swords

Sangetsu

Even here in Japan where the weather is humid, you can still find prewar era bikes. Anyone who has been to the Tsukiji fish market, which is near the sea has seen the old delivery bikes which take fresh fish to the local stores, most of these date to the 50's and 60's.

Just keep your bike clean, put a little wax on it for one or twice a year, and your great-grandchildren can ride it.

Stucky

Just shows ya how much we've devolved over the last 4 or 5 decades. Even cheaply made things used to be made with care and pride, and made to last. Today, they're just made to look nice in the store, so that someone'll buy them, and then they fall aprt after a few months in the real world.

Gotta say one thing about my old $99 Murray, which was my means of transportation when I was 13-14: It might've been a heavy boat anchor, and couldn't stop worth a darn in the rain....but I hopped on that thing the day my stepfather bought it for me, and rode the crap out of it, and I never did a thing to it! No adjustments; no maintenance (Hey, I was just an ignorant kid!)....I don't even remember ever having a flat tire on it! It wasn't uncommon for me to ride 25 miles in a day on it.

rekmeyata

Younger people today have no idea of the quality of things that use to be made back in our day, they think we all had pieces of junk from cars to bikes to whatever, but that is so far from the truth. I too remember having bikes and knowing kids that all sorts of brands of bikes even odd bikes like the Philco, and while they all were the lowest costing bikes our parents could buy they could outlast any Walmart type of bike at least by a margin of 5 to 1. Most parents bought their oldest child a low cost bike, then once the child grew out of it it was handed down to the next, then on to the next and so on, and the darn thing would last through crashes, abuse, being left out in rain and snow, serious neglect, and still keep going; todays Walmart bike will barely make it past the first child and rarely would one be able to be handed down to a younger sibling, not alone 5 or more waiting to get old enough to ride it.

Not only was the quality in terms of durability better but the craftsman that built all sorts of stuff put artistry into the builds. Sure there were issues with chrome rims being dangerous when wet but chrome was cheap, it didn't rust, it lasted a long time, and shrugged off abuse like it was nothing. We still have issues with stuff being built today that wasn't thought through far enough, we've had CF seatposts break in two, CF and hollow AL crank arms snap off, etc, so to say well back in the day chrome wheels were dangerous due to primates in the engineering department is false. There are some things in today's world that is obviously better, but for the most part they are not better in terms of longevity. The odd thing with today's build in product self destruct abilities, we've gone away from incandescent bulbs that didn't last very long to LED bulbs which last a long long time, but they don't want to do that with other products?

Some things are just plain weird in today's world, the other day I was at the mall in the checkout line when the power went off (this has happened to me more than once), once the power goes out I couldn't checkout, I was either stuck waiting for the power to come back on or leave without buying which is what I did, which was a good thing I chose to leave because later I found out they had to shut down the entire mall for the rest of the day. Back before computers and electronic registers, we could continue to buy stuff because the registers were mechanical.

Stucky

All SO true!

I used to think that it wouldn't be long until people got disgusted with all of the low-quality junk which seems to make up about 98% of the market these days- including food, where the amount one gets keeps shrinking, and the quality keeps declining- but that day never seems to come, and i think that you have put your finger on exactly why: The young'uns are told that everything "back then" was crap. They don't realize how crappy what we have now is, and how good we had it in the past. (Probably why they are never exposed to old movies either...imagine if they saw the way the average American lived in the 1940's or 50's?! They'd suddenly realize how they have been cheated out of what used to be just normal everyday life for most people...but which is almost unobtainable for most now).

I think the electronics, and the lightning-speed at which they become obsolete, and the fact that it doesn't pay to repair them, but one just tosses them out and buys another one when they break, has contributed to the acceptance of short-lived sub-par quality too. When people start routinely buying things which may cost hundreds of dollars, with no expectation of them lasting more than a year or two...that mentality gets transfered to everything before long. Now it's getting to be that way with even cars, which have gotten to the point where they will no longer be economically feasible to own once they are out of warranty.

And now we have CF frames and electronic shifting....and the attitude seems to be getting to tghe point where it is acceptable if your $7K bicycle lasts for 5 years. Never mind passing it down to your descendants....it's like a miracle if it doesn't assplode under your butt cheeks!

Ah...and don't even get me started on all of the things that used to not only be done manually...but were done better or faster being done so (I SWEAR, check out lines WERE faster in the 60's when the cashier just rang everything up manually!)....it didn't require a battery or an AC connection to do every little thing. Things were simple. They worked. They lasted. When they broke, they could be fixed easily/economically.

Oh man, what we have lost!

rekmeyata

What the younger generation doesn't realize in regards to product durability is simple history they know nothing about. In the early 70's major kitchen appliances as well as washers and dryers lasted an average of 28 years...this was according to Consumer Reports back then; today the average appliance lifespan is just 8 years! There is also a huge price difference in appliances, a side by side frig cost $704 in the early 70's but these were considered high end units because most people bought refrigs that had the refrig on the bottom and the freezer on top which nowadays is considered a low end unit; today the average side by side are about $2,400 for a mid level unit. With inflation though $704 dollars is about $3,800 dollars today, but consider the average refrig only lasts 8 years and most of the time they can't be repaired when they fail, well you can see how far we are behind from the 70's.

TV's have become incredibly cheaper today then they were in the 70's, the average TV with a "large" 25 inch screen cost around $750, today of course you can get 50" TV's for only $500 which is way less than the cost of inflation would be...BUT, the average TV today is only suppose to last 10 years and cannot be repaired at all vs 25 years back in the day and it could be repaired. But the other argument is the picture quality is far better today. I guess if you took $500 for the cost of one TV today and times it by 2.5 in order to replace it every 10 years vs every 25 years still makes the modern TV less expensive even over the long haul. We can thank China for giving us cheap electronics.

So in some limited areas we have it better today, but in most areas that isn't true. Plus back in the 70's there were cottage industries that were around to repair all sorts of products that can't be repaired today which put those industries out of business which meant loss of very skilled workers. Even shoes back in the day were repairable, today only the most expensive shoes are repaired that is if you can find a shoe repair person.

Back in the day cars would only last an average of 120,000 miles but today they'll go 220,000 miles. But that is all smoke and mirrors, because cars back in the day ran 70 mph at 3,000 rpm, today they run about 1,500 rpm, a little math will show that a car back in the day that could turn 1,500 rpm would last just as long as cars do today. Gas mileage sucked back then but no one cared either because gas was cheap!

SquidPuppet

That is completely backwards. Modern television sets should and do last much longer than the sets of the 70's. Modern sets don't have tubes which wear and fail. Remember testing and replacing tubes? Remember when the picture tube began to fail? The set was DOA at that point. Modern televisions can be repaired. I've had a modern big screen television serviced in my home under warranty.

Stucky

So true, Rekmeyata. I had one of those good old Maytag washers! 25 years old, and never missed a beat. Was still working perfectly when I sold it (because i was moving). By comparison, my sister bought a new modern Maytag a few years ago; it was a piece of junk (I warne3d her!)- She sold it within a year for a fraction of what she paid for it.

Loved those old TVs- they would last forever, and when something went wrong, you could often just go to a hardware store and test a few tubes and buy the proper replacement tube for a couple of bucks. Now the picture quality is better...but there's nothing on worth watching. I was satisfied with that old 20" black & white TV when there were good shows on. You'd often have a hard time deciding what to watch, because there'd be 2 or 3 good shows on at the same time- and that with only 7 TV stations!

And a lot of those cars that only lasted 120K miles are still around today. Nobody knows the true mileage, because the odometers only went up to 99,999. I think many of the ones that died premature deaths did so because of neglect. A lot of people weren't as meticulous about changing oil and stuff back then. Cars were comparatively cheaper, and many people would simply get a new car every 2 years or so, just because they could...and the next owner of that car often wouldn't do any maintenance, if they weren't a "car person" and would just drive it until it dropped- so the fact that it could still last to 120K was pretty impressive.

My cousin still has her '71 Mustang that she bought brand new in '71. Never had any major work done to it, and it's lived a hard life of mostly stop & go traffic and being parked on the street in the Northeast.

rekmeyata

Picture tubes didn't typically start to fail for around 30 years if not longer, and in the 70's, which is the era I was speaking of, smaller tube replacement was no longer necessary since that ended in about the mid 60's for TV's. In the 70's all TV's had gone to solid state componentry which lasts far longer than today's microchip technology, solid state components were not as fragile as microchips are in the area of heat and surges which why all modern electronic stuff INCLUDING refrigs, microwave ovens, washers and dryers, stoves and ovens, TV's, stereos, and of course computers should be protected with surge protectors whereas prior to microchips being used in those products this wasn't necessary. So no i don't have it backwards. My inlaws used their 25 inch TV for 40 years and never had any repairs whatsoever, they only got rid of it because dad's eyes were failing and he wanted a larger TV!

We really don't have any modern LCD TV's or Plasma TV's that are over 20 years old not alone 30 or even 40 for a complete idea of how long they'll last, and the ones that will last a long time are ones that have been protected against surges with a very good surge protector. Production LCD TV's came along about the mid 90's; LCD computer monitors have been around since the mid 80's and those failed about every 5 years, I know this because mine at home and at the business, as well as people I knew, would fail about that often even with surge protection, whereas my older CRT was 15 years old before I got rid of it but it still worked, newer computer LCD that were made in the early 2000's lasted longer. So for an accurate judge of reliability one would have to wait over 20 years from the early 2000 TV's (to get rid of durability bugs which also existed in 50's and 60's era TV's), then we will have a more accurate picture of durability of modern LCD TV's.

Plasma TV's by the way have a better reliability record SO FAR than does LCD TV's SO FAR. Of course LCD has won out over Plasma (even though the picture quality in a lot of aspects is better with Plasma but I digress) so again we have to wait another 10 years for the LCD tv's history to be established before we know for sure how the newer generation of TV's will do.

But again let me stress, I in no way came out against modern TV's in my post, I even showed the cost factor of a TV back in the 70's vs today and said that even if a person had to replace a modern TV every 10 years cost wise they would be ahead of a 70's era TV, not to mention the energy savings which I failed to mention in that earlier post. So all in all modern TV's are still the better bang for the buck than TV's of the 70's...one of the few things that are.

SquidPuppet

You said that modern televisions are "Not supposed to last longer than 10 years." That's incorrect.

You said modern Televisions "Cannot be repaired at all." That's incorrect. They can be repaired more easily than older sets because the guts are all plug-n-play.

Your statement about the engine lifespan of modern cars vs older cars is incorrect (backwards). Older cars with big displacement engines ran at lower RPMs than modern small displacement engines. With advancements in design, metallurgy and coatings, modern car engines produce far more power (per CC), get better mileage, and last far longer than engines of the 1970s. There is NO comparison. The average life expectancy of a 1970s engine was not 120k miles. You were lucky to get 100K, and there would have been a valve job or two along the way to keep it alive. Getting 100k out of your car entitled you to bragging rights. Today we have engines that go 300k miles without a hiccup. Spark plugs that last 150k miles. Bumper to bumper warranties for 100k. And far less maintenance as well.

Appliances that lasted 28 year? Eh, I don't thinks so.

I'm old and there are many things I miss about the old days. Many. There's nothing wrong with having fond memories of yesteryear, but I'm always amazed when someone weaves their affection of the old days into negative fiction about today.

rekmeyata

Again you don't know what your talking about, what else is new?

Look man I use to drive HP big block engines and due to the 3 speed autos some of them had you would run about 3k in rpm at 70, some would go as low as 2500 depending on the rear gears provided by the factory. I still have a few classic cars and that's about where the RPMs range from on the big blocks, on my small blocks they range from 3 to 4k, my 79 Z28 with a 350 runs at 4500 rpm at 70 in third with stock high performance rear gears, but that car was a rare bird because in 79 they brought the horsepower way down due to smog laws so to make the car feel like it was fast they put stupid gears in it so it was quick but top speed was low at 100 mph. Whereas the average 4 cylinder may turn between 2500 to 3k rpm at 70 but a V6 will only crank out between 1800 to 2500. Obviously all cars are different, a MBZ C230 4 cylinder turns 3200 at 80 which is quite low for a 4 cylinder but a 4 cylinder Honda will be around 4500. So in comparison the old big block engines of the 60's and 70's ran about the same RPM has a 4 cylinder today, but a small block V8 today runs about half the RPM's of an old big block, and that is the comparison I was trying to make because back in the 60's and 70's there were very few 4 cylinder engines around only foreign cheap sports cars had those engines and they didn't hold up well. So again, if you compare the RPM's of the V8's of old vs the new ones there is about 1/2 the difference which accounts for the engines life being longer today.

And yes, todays cars do produce more horsepower but look at the replacement cost of those engines, I wasn't arguing that point. With fuel injection, much more science involved and improved work in flow dynamics horsepower has gone up. Of course back in the day a person with knowledge could work on a V8 and get more power, we had cars that were built and would do 9 second quarter miles, today's engines have very little extra, especially the Hellcat, that can be done to make it even better except for supercharging. And yes I did say today's cars get better gas mileage but back in the day no one cared about gas mileage because gasoline was cheap so there was no incentive to build high miles per gallon car, though there were a few cars that got over 20, in fact there was a Honda 600 (no, not a motorcycle) that got 65 to 70 mpg and it was made sometime in the mid 70's, so even with our modern technology not even the best gas mileage car, the Prius gets that much and the Honda did with carburation! And by the way, we never needed valve jobs a couple or even one time along the 140,000 miles of an engine, where did you make come up with that load of crap?

Appliances, repair people that have been alive for awhile know all too well that quality has slipped over the years, read these: Why don't most modern washing machines last very long?

They Used To Last 50 Years | ReCraigslist.com

Repair experts: Modern appliances aren?t lasting as long as previous models | The Columbus Dispatch

So now we all know what I said about appliances is true, it's you younger folks who don't understand this, hopefully after reading those sites you will gain an understanding.

I was wrong, after doing a little googling, a modern TV does have some repairable parts, but the cost to repair may make it more expensive than buying a new one. However the durability of these newer TV's is indeed questionable, see: Average HDTV Today Made to Last Only a Few Years And the stuff you read about LCD's lasting 100,000 hours is only talking about when the LED's dim, not how long the actual TV will last, read this on more infor: https://www.cnet.com/news/how-long-d...isons-mailbag/ Also some brands cannot be fixed like the Vizio which is considered a disposable TV, see: https://hdguru.com/disposable-tvs-vi...un-repairable/

SquidPuppet

I'd respond if you'd keep it civil. But it appears you'd rather throw barbs than stay on topic.

rekmeyata

LOL! So you can't argue facts so you tell me to stay on topic? Which I did, as well as throwing a couple of barbs for fun.

Maelochs

Sure, and back in the day, if the power went out in the dentist's office, it didn't matter, because with no X-rays and no electric drills, the guy would just keep pounding away at your tooth with a hammer and chisel.

In the old days a lot of people had to do a lot of work to keep track of things which is now done automatically at the register. The "Cash Register" as it was (which registered the exchange of cash) doesn't even exist nowadays. What is in its place is a money/inventory control/employee monitoring system which greatly enhances the ability of the store to track who is working and what they are doing, what is being sold, how many are left, and how many need to be ordered, plus method of payment, tons of info about customers which enables retailers to stock what people want and helps them anticipate which new products to order .....


Ah, for the Goode Olde Days, when cancer was always fatal ... and so were half a hundred other diseases .... When doctors advertised cigarettes and denied there were any health issues associated with smoking.

Sorry, the Goode Olde Days had their drawbacks as well as their strengths. Same as today. Mostly because it is all humans doing stupid human tricks anyway ... and people don't change much from generation to generation. The foci change; the tech changes; but human beings do the same stupid stuff decade after decade, Millennium after millennium.

Yeah, a garbage bike from 50 years ago is a lot Different than a garbage bike today. That doesn't mean everything used to be better .... just that everything is always different.

Except people. We still pull the same stupid nostalgia bit when we start to age, telling everyone how much better everything used to be ... forgetting that our 'better" was the previous generation's "worse."

I'd be glad to find an '70s Schwinn at a yard sale or something .... I'd ride it. I have two mid-'80s bikes which I enjoy riding. Doesn't mean my modern bikes suck.

And yeah, consumerism has led us to the current situation where everything wears out fast ... and you know what? Even if the stuff Doesn't wear out, a lot of people replace stuff just because they find it enjoyable.

For a while a friend and I made spare cash by driving through upper-middle class neighborhoods the night before trash day, picking up the perfectly good stuff they were throwing away because they wanted something new.

No one Makes people be consumers. people have fun that it can be fun to consume. Most people don't Want the "same, old" appliance or clothing or tool ....they want the "latest, greatest ...."

What we don't like about it isn't that it is existentially "bad" but that it is not the situation, nor the values, which we had growing up. Hey, news flash---Every generation has different values and a different environment, social and commercial, than the previous generation.

(Generalization Warning if our parents hated early rock, or for some, the last vestiges of rock, which their kids loved .... we hate rap and hip-hop, which the kids love. Around the turn of the 20th century, parents hated blues and jazz ... around WWII Swing was the evil unholy, devolved music that parents hated.

Same as it ever was.