I had some "bike money" sitting around in my paypal account. That lasted about 4 days.I just used it on a '74 Raleigh Professional MKIV Frame and Fork I won on ebay for $260 shipped:

Link



From the numbers I'm seeing other pro frames seem to be going for at least that if not more so I think I did ok. My only slight concern is what the seller states about the fork:

"This frame set came to me with a Shimano headset, which is shorter than the original Campagnolo. I am not an expert, but I would think that the steerer tube may have been cut down to accommodate the shorter headset. That said, I cannot guarantee the original Campagnolo headset will fit. Hopefully, the measurements I have given will help in determining the fit factor."

Can anyone tell by looking at the pics in the link if it looks like it was cut? I didnt see that as a deal breaker, but I'd like to know what you all think. I have to gather up all the campy bits to built it up either way.

Apparently it was a 7 day auction but somehow I didnt find it until tonight, about an hour before the auction ended. It had no bids on it until the very end, and only one other bid aside from mine. I hope everyone else didnt know something I dont....I think it looks pretty nice. There is a small dent in the chain stay but I dont think it seems structural.

I'd like to hear any thoughts on how I did. Did I pay too much? Will the fork be an issue? Does the dent look worse than I thought? SHould I be having buyers remorse?

Right now I'm excited for it to show up...

I was watching that one and was surprised by the lack of action. If it's sound, you got a very good deal. The cut steerer just means you need to use a headseat with relatively small stack height. It doesn't look unusually trimmed from the auction pics.

Neal

Hard to tell from the photo, but lower stack height headsets are out there. I did the stupid move (twice!) and trimed the steerer on my Serotta and Gazelle AB-frame after installing new Campagnolo Record threaded headsets with a pretty low stack height to them. Should have put spacers on instead, but not much I can do to change that now.

If it was cut it was done well, but it appears to be long enough, Im no expert so wait for the others to reply

a good deal all told. I think that if you must have a campy headset, you can substitute a thinner washer for the double thick one that comes with the original. I have even run one without any washer, although you will have to be checking and adjusting it like, all of the time. If you don't particularly need a campy, there are others that look nearly as good with less stack height. I bought an alloy campy copy with a shorter stack height at the LBS a couple of years ago, and I think I paid 26$ for it brand new. from a short distance it is indistinguishable from the original campag SR.

Measure the fork's steerer tube length (fork's race seat to top of tube) and the height of the head tube, subtracting the latter from the former. That's your stack height. Campy Record is about 40 or 42, if I remember correctly. Good quality headsets (Tange) are available down to 33 or so. Campy Pista headsets are lower than the Record, so that's always an option.

+1, I was watching this one out of curiosity. As far as price, I'd have to say you did great. I bought a MK V Pro for 350.00+shipping and it doesn't have the chromed fork and stays, plus your frame set has the fastback seat cluster. There was another Raleigh frame set with shot paint and shot chrome that went for a little over $1000.00 for some odd reason. I'm working on getting parts to build mine too, although I only have a gran sport group for now.

Lets just hope your seller is better with shipping, and I'm sure he is




-Matt

Looks like you did pretty well.