Since I've acquired my Marathon, a few other posters have said they have similar bikes and have asked for information. I thought it would be good to start a thread dedicated to Raleigh Marathon pictures and information. First of all, from Sheldon Brown's Retro Raleighs site, there are the specs for the 1985 model.



According to this article hosted by Tony Hadland, Raleighs in the USA from approximately 1983 to 1986 were made by Huffy under a franchise contract with Raleigh to use the name. The bicycles were made of parts sourced from Japan and Taiwan. They were an attempt by Huffy to gain a presence in the LBS market.

The color of a Marathon was "teal and quicksilver"; it's the quickest way to identify a Marathon in my opinion. Here is one example (mine ;- )



As far as I know, this example is all original, except:

- Headlight and tail light added
- Wheelset is not original (although I'm working on the originals and hope to get them on soon)
- Seat and seatpost are not original
- Cables may have been replaced; the cables are all black on mine, except the short section of housing that goes to the rear derailleur is gray/silver.

To get an idea of when your Marathon was produced, you can either look at the serial number on the bottom bracket and decode using the information from The Headbadge (scroll all the way to the bottom for 83-86 years). If there is a cable guide on the bottom bracket that obscures the serial number, check the inside of your cranks. On mine there is a circle that says

83
D

which I take to mean that the cranks were produced in April of 1983.

I will look over my posts and anything other information pertaining to the Marathon that should be in this thread I'll add to it.

I don't know if the Marathon was sold in Canada.
It does however look like a lower end model to my Olympian, which is from the same era.

Very nice!

More specifically, Huffy gained the rights to managing Raleigh's USA division; I would hardly venture to say that these machines were made by Huffy. Subcontracted to the Japanese and Taiwanese companies that produced them, rather.

-Kurt

Thanks for the explanation. It's kind of vague; not an outright buying of anything, just a contract to manage the US stuff for them, eh?

Good job on making this thread. I know there must be 5 or 6 of those Marathon's around, including yours and mine. When the right brake cable, hood and bar tape have been changed, including the brake calipers I'm going to put up a few pictures.

So as you may have guessed I'm still going along with the 105 calipers, but have to do some drilling. No big deal though.

I haven't seem them a a mixte before though...

*edit*
Did a quick check, mine's July 1986. So it appears that the recessed nuts weren't supported yet by then. I really think your bike had it drilled out by a previous owner.

I found a very nice Marathon a couple of years ago for $25 in a thrift shop. It was a little small for me so I cleaned it up and gave it to a co-worker whose son had just learned to ride a bike. He was riding around with the boy on mom's mountain bike which was way too small.

I should drag that over to the shop, get a picture for you, and tune it up for him for next year.

I picked up this 1984 Raleigh Marathon thinking it would be my beater bike, but it was too small. It went to a lady here in town looking to get back into cycling. I put Performance Forte, 1 1/8 inch width tires with 105 PSI on it. That really improved the performance.

Here is my 1980's Raleigh USA. I only know that much from the headbadge. This is the bike I posted last summer in the COTD, when I got it for one dollar at our annual neighborhood street sale. (That's the same sale where I got the Pinarello and the Bianchi, three bikes for three dollars.) The seller said he built up this bike for triathlons, and that he was real proud of his paint job then, but not now. The pictures tell why.

Anyway, there is indeed a cable guide plate or bracket on the underside of the BB, obscuring any serial numbers that might be there. I think the multiple coats of paint slapped on it might have filled them in, too. And I checked the inside of my cranks, which are Campagnolo, and all I see is a '170', then a circle with a '4' inside it, then "9/16 x 20F". The other decals on the bike are aftermarket. So I have no idea what type of Raleigh this is. I will say this is a very light bike, maybe even lighter than that Pinarello.

One question: when I first got the bike, for some reason I thought I'd check the headbadge to be sure it really belonged on this bike, and it popped off when I got my fingernails underneath it. The pins correspond to the holes in the headtube, but they're not enough to secure it. What do you use to affix the headbadge? Some sort of glue?

The pic below is a 1987 Raleigh Record. As near as I could tell, the only difference between the 87 Record and the earlier Marathon was the Marathon had dual QRs and a slightly better rear Suntour DR. Otherwise the bikes appear to be identical. The 502, chromoly frame, alloy rims, bars, brakes, levers, cranks are identical along with the chrome seat post.
The bike below has a few minor upgrades. The chrome seat post has been replaced with alloy and I added the rear QR like the Marathon has. For a 1987 bike, this is a bit of a throw back looking more like a 70s bike than a late 80s bike. But meets my needs and has a surprisingly nice ride.

I too am the proud owner of the American/Taiwanese/English, Huffy/Raleigh. Mine is a 1985 Kodiak. It is one step down from their top of the line Portage. It is a classic 80s touring bike with relaxed geometry, braze ons everywhere & a 40 spoke rear wheel. I picked it up at a garage sale a few weeks after purchasing a new Surly LHT. I'd say its 90% of the Surly at 1% of the cost. It will never be a classic but like the marathon, just a great all around bike.

This would be an awesome gadget if you have alumiminum fenders attached to your Raleigh Marathon

Here she is, slightly smaller than Doohickie's and 'a little' larger than roccobike's:

23 incher. Nice. I found a guy on a blog that has a 27-inch Marathon.



He also has a sweet Super Grand Prix

Can't believe I missed this thread....Thanks to Doohickie for pointing it out in another thread.

Mine was picked up late last summer. Here's the thread when I got my $20 Raleigh Marathon. She was all original and in great shape; a victim of garage rafters

She's now slightly modernized; 2x8 RSX group with 105 crank. Relaced the rear wheel to a sealed bearing 130mm hub that actually spins nicely. Every original part has been carefully stored so I can take it back to original in just a couple hours. I don't know if I'd ever need/want to, but I can.

Bike gets ridden as much as possible. Have a goal of 1500 miles before July 4th this year, and I'm well on my way even given the crappy weather we've had so far this spring. A really great bike to ride and I just love it - especially given the very few $ I have sunk into it.

Last pic I took of it; was before relacing the rear wheel(this was with a 7spd freewheel on it).

That's even in better shape than mine! Very nice!

Though, mine's for sale now I've upgraded to an aluminum Giant OCR.

here's one that I flipped last summer.











I only wear it showed was from being moved around the garage. It still had the little nubs on tires and they werent dryrotted. I got it for $45 if I remember correctly. All it needed was a cleaning.

Don't mean to bump the thread but I'm looking to pick one up as my around town bike. I found one in good condition online, how much would one like this be worth?


12 speed, made in japan, original tires!

Here is mine! This was passed down from my father in law who bought it brand new. I wish that it were in better shape, but it rides very nice and fits me well. Now that I have a more modern road bike I am thinking about tearing this down and really cleaning, adjusting and re-packing every thing. I might even up-grade a thing or two too.

Wow! I just stumbled into this thread while searching for Serial # info on my C-40.

I purchased my Marathon in January of 2007. I don't know the size but it fits me very nicely and that's all I cared about. I would have had two Marathons to share with you, but by the time I was done arguing with my bride the nice step-through frame Marathon in Craigs list this past Spring had been sold.

The Serial # on this unit indicates that it was built during 1986. I believe it's mostly original except for the tires, rack, lights, and bottle cage.

My sons first road bike was a Marathon that was really too big for him, Shortly thereafter I found him a nice little red Pursuit which in turn lead to a Peugeot AO8, Vitus 979, Raleigh Technium etc, etc.

He's not had less than four road bikes in his personal fleet for more than two years and he's only 13.

My Marathon above,

suffered some damage to the right rear dropout and derailleur hanger a while back.



So with a little imagination, I finally got it rolling again, now as a cruiser with a Sturmey Archer 2-speed hub:

Just a bump to let people know those Marathons are still out there rolling down the road.

Mine

That is one heavily modified Marathon with lots of nice parts added. Lookin' good!

Aha. So, by the time the Techniums began to be produced, Raleigh USA was owned by the German company Derby Cycles, and not Huffy.