rjhammett

I don't want to stir up a lot of hate with my comments but..... I once owned a Technium 440. It is the only aluminum road bike I have owned. I purchased it in the Fall and put it on my trainer over the Winter. I rode it a bit in the Spring. That was enough for me. I sold it. I didn't like it at all. The good thing about that bike was that I made $100 profit when I sold it.

rodteague

Thats interesting. Your 440 is just as it should be according to the catalog. I rechecked my front hub and it is a SR as well. So now I have a have a 440 that was manufactured April 12th of 1986 and was the 58th bicycle of that year. All components are correct except for the shifters, front and rear detailers, and the rear hub. The Maillard hub was manufactured in the 25th week of 1986, which would mean it was made 2 months after my Raleigh came off the line. No question, it replaced the SR rear hub at some point, possibly later that year. I have to assume the same for the Shimano set. Thanks, that was helpful.

Update: my Technetium appears to have left the line with the Shimano shifters and derailleurs; shifters were manufactured in 1985; front derailleur was made in 1984 and the rear derailleur was mfg 1 month before my bike came off the line in 1986. It's a bit confusing, but could Raleigh USA have swapped components and used what they had or could get their hands on, just to get bikes to dealers? Mystery to me.

Regards

Rod

jimjim58

No problem, I bought mine 31 years ago for casual riding. Been hanging from the ceiling most of those years until July of this year when I started riding for fitness. Put 650 miles on it, got obsessed with riding and bought a Trek Domane SL6. The Technium is back on the hooks.

rodteague

I had a Cannondale I purchased in the mid 1980's. Felt the same as you, as it was my first aluminum bike. I sold it pretty quickly and regretted having traded my stump jumper for it. No hate taken, different bikes for different likes

rodteague

I hope you pull it off the "hooks" occasionally. IMO the 1986 Technium 440 in these two color schemes, are some of the more beautiful bikes Raleigh has produced. It would be ashame not to show it off every now and then Mine will spend most of it's time pulling a trailer around campgrounds and down to the beach

Best regards

Rod

Lascauxcaveman 

I'm not very fond of my black/red Technium Pro, the bike in the very first post on this thread. It's light, pretty comfy, but feels "mushy" compared to my good steel bikes. I don't feel I'm getting as much out of it in forward momentum as I'm putting into it in leg power. And this is after adding new Conti GP 4000 S II tires on good, stiff rims. It could be that at a little over 200 lbs, I'm just too much rider for that frame. Selling that bike, come spring.

The other bike I posted in this thread the purple/black/yellow RT600 with 531 tubing I've put a few more miles on, and I'm gaining more appreciation for it. That one will likely get one of those bargain CF forks from Nashbar before its fate is decided. I'll probably borrow the fork from the black/red one and try that out for awhile, too.

Lascauxcaveman 

Team 753 Technium article

(Posted on a FS thread by another forumite; thought I'd save the link here for posterity.)

Kontact 

My first bike store bike was a Technium 440. I have a red anodized Pro frameset coming and some nice older Japanese parts for it, plus the red anodized Mavic wheels off my Lemond (they'll be sharing). I may substitute a Kestrel EMS fork if it has a long enough steerer - we'll see.


Can anyone confirm that the FD clamp diameter is 31.8/1.25"?


I've always assumed that the "ultimate" Technium was the aluminum lugs with 753, which had the possibility of riding like steel and weighing like aluminum. No idea if it managed that.


It's interesting that the other Raleigh had the Dynatech frames that System U rode in the late '80s. Same concept, totally different look.

henry.tank.usn

Hello, I just purchased a Raleigh, USA Technium Olympian aluminum road bicycle. I was just wondering how I'm supposed to know the year it was manufatured by looking at it; as it is, I can't even find a serial number on it. By chance, would someone tell me where the serial number on it is?

Thank You...

rodteague

The Raleigh USA Techniums will have the serial number stamped on the underside of the bottom bracket(bracket that houses the crank assembly). Which means you will have to turn the bicycle upside down to view it. Go to this Sheldon Brown link to interpret the S/N.

Determining the Age of a Raleigh

Sheldon also has a link to Kurt Kaminers Headbadge site which is also very helpful.

Let us know what you find

Regards

Rod

Kontact 

Does anyone have links to Technium catalogs that show geometry?


I got my red anodized Pro yesterday - it is in outstanding condition.

I was surprised by the magnet test on this frame - the standard Techniums are said to be aluminum main tubes with steel lugs, but that isn't the case. Both head tube lugs and the seat cluster are all aluminum. The only steel on the frame are the stays, brake bridge, dropouts and BB shell. So there are only 4 dissimilar bonds on the frame.


I've been trying different kinds of metal frames, and I look forward to getting this built up. The front end should be stiffer than a Vitus due to the wider aluminum tubing, but the back end is likely to be as stiff as any steel frame. Especially since the chainstays are on the shorter side at 404mm. So it has the potential for a reasonably smooth ride without being overly flexible. I would expect it to be an improvement over the old Trek bonded aluminum frames for a similar weight.

rodteague

Kurt Kaminers website is the most complete; but unfortunately none of the catalogs have images with geometry.

https://www.kurtkaminer.com/TH_raleigh_catdata.html

The Technium 480; 460 and 440, have investment cast *CORRECTION: steel lugs; aluminum main tubes, steel seat stays, steel fork and investment cast steel dropouts. The head tube and bottom bracket I believe are steel as well; but, I'll have to check tomorrow. The pro series is a different animal as you describe; the only similarity is "Technium bonding process".

* I knew they were steel because of the rust I noticed around the cable housings when I removed them during my SS conversion; I'll still do a magnet test when I get home in the morning to confirm it. Sorry for the confusion.

Best Regards

Rod

Kontact 

That all sounds just like the Pro. But my 50cm frame doesn't have a head tube separate from the lug.

Thanks for the link.

rodteague

The pro uses steel main tubes. I think the confusion surrounds the construction of the head tube, bottom bracket and lugs. I just saw a few pictures of a Technium 460 that had been blasted and repainted. It appears the head tube, lugs and bottom bracket/lugs are one piece investment cast steel with the main tubes being made of aluminum. the rear triangle is steel. The pro would have one piece investment cast aluminum for both parts; with steel main tubes, and rear triangle. I'll research it a bit more, but I believe that is correct. Stay tuned I'll put a magnet to mine tomorrow.

Here is the link to another thread in this forum that clearly shows the lugs/headtube and lugs/ bottom bracket being investment cast and all one piece. The pics are about halfway down. I had always assumed the lugs were the investment cast part; Raleigh, caused some of the confusion because they never made it clear that the lugs headtube/bottom bracket were a "sum of the whole" of the two investment cast parts.

Raleigh Technium 440 - Somebody stop me!

This article on velo-pages sheds some additional light

https://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_itemId=21970

Regards

Rod

Kontact 

No, it doesn't. Some do, but the ones like mine with the red anodized main tubes are quite definitely not steel.

rodteague

What year is your pro? Because the 1986 catalog shows the Team Pro using either Reynolds 531 or 753 steel tubing. Later years saw Raleigh changing a few things in the Technium line by adding additional options. I just can't verify due to lack of information/resources on the web. Steel tubing in the Team Pro has generally been one of the things that has differentiated it from the other Technium lines. It would be interesting to know what year your bike was mfg, and how long this series or option was offered. From what I understand, yours would be the oddity. Just curious.

Regards

Rod

Kontact 

In 1986 there was no Technium Pro. The '86 Team Pro is an all steel brazed/lugged frameset. It looks nothing like a Technium and is in a separate part of the catalog.

I have a 1991, which is after they went to race geometry. During that later period there were some actual Techniums with steel main tubes and aluminum lugs. There was also Dynatech in England.

rodteague

OOPs My mistake. It still appears that the earlier late 80's Team Technium Pro model used 531. At what point did they offer aluminum main tubes...... maybe 1991? I've seen far more Team Pro Techniums in that configuration than your model, and I have only been following this bike and it's developement for a short period of time. I believe the lesson here, is not to make assumptions. It would be nice to find a comprehensive timeline for the Techniums; just haven't been able to uncover one yet. Oh well, I'm sure someone will chime in.

Very nice bike btw

Best Regards

Rod

Kontact 

According to the information in the OP, the first steel Techniums were the 1991 Competition and Team.

rodteague

This conversation is obviously getting over my head; but, I have seen a couple pics on this forum where the owners identified/dated their steel main tube Techniums before 1990; I simply do not have the energy to find them for the moment. BTW The OP only quotes catalogs of 1990, 1991, and 1992.

Roadbikereview has a thread where Dennis Bushnell; a technician for Raleigh USA; claims to have knowledge or built Techniums out of Reynolds 753 prior to his departure in 1988. This supports the ascertion that Techniums were mfg with main tubes from both aluminum and steel prior to 1990. It would be nice to verify this with actual catalogs from 1987-1989. Those are apparently harder to find than "hens teeth".

Here is the link to the thread: Raleigh Technium?

I may be way off base; but I'm not willing to rule out any combination of Techniums prior to 1990; until the info is garnished from a published catalog, or straight from the "horses mouth" (Raleigh USA)

I'll leave it at that until I have more concrete information.

Best Regards

Rod

UPDATE: I'm home from work and the magnet test is as follows on my 1986 Technium 440: one piece investment cast head tube and lugs-steel; seat stay/seat post/top tube lug-steel; one piece investment cast bottom bracket housing/lugs-steel; rear stays-steel; forks-steel; front and rear investment cast dropouts-steel. The same frame is used for the 480 and 460; so I assume the magnet test would be identical....... but we see how assuming has gone lately, not well for me btw.

Kontact 

I don't know if they made a steel tubed Technium in '88 or '89, it just doesn't look like they made one in 1990.

What your UPDATE and photos illustrate is that "Technium" was never just one set of specs. There are at least three completely different seat lug styles used, the geometry between the original sport/touring 400 series was completely changed for the later short wheelbase bikes. The only constant was the fact that somewhere on the bike there would be some steel to not steel bonds. It sounds like early versions used all steel lugs and later bikes integrated more aluminum into the design.

What I find interesting about the design is the actual design of the bonds - on most bonded bikes the lug is a tapered cone and the tube is chamfered on the inside. On the Techniums there is that external band over the outside of the join and a third piece of tubing on the inside of the BB shell. On mine, this third piece is steel and extends over an inch up into the aluminum down tube or seat tube that you can detect with a magnet. But I believe the seat lug is one piece with those internal extensions one piece of aluminum with the lug. Aluminum is easier to produce complex castings, but it may be just the way it looks from the outside.

All that said, this lug system is different from others, doesn't appear chamfered anywhere and has considerable overlap from these internal tubes.


This illustration shows the inner sleeve:

OldsCOOL

Here is my ‘88 Technium PRE. I no longer ride it since it is now my son’s bike. I really enjoyed my 3 summers with it.

Lascauxcaveman 

The very first bike on this thread is my Technium Pro, 1990 I believe. It's steel lugs and stays, with aluminum main tubes, complete with Easton E9 labeling.


There were later "Team" models with 753 steel main tubes, for sure, as in the one in the article I linked to a little upthread from here. Also my 1993 purple Technium RT600 (somewhere on page 2 of this thread) is 531 main tubes, cro-mo stays with aluminum alloy lugs.

Kontact 

Is "Pro" a model or a series? I had thought the 753 Technium was called the "Team" and the "Pro" was a model with aluminum top lugs and main tubes.

RobbieTunes

technii?