cudak888 

13 years ago, @pastorbobnlnh sent over a treasure from his stump dump - a silver 1980 Raleigh Sports. Original thread @ https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...ml#post2311725

I was working on a 1951 Sports at the same time though, and it quickly muscled in to dethrone the '80. I was smitten with the '51s workmanship and uniqueness - two things that the 1980 lacks, even in comparison to the mid-'70s production - and the '80 quickly fell out of favor.

The turf-stealer in 2006:


After a few small metamorphosis here and there, still a primadonna to be reckoned with:


As you can see, the '80 has had nothing but stiff competition against the persistent novelty of the '51.

So the coffin-reflector'ed Sports was put to the side for the most part, as I tried to figure out how to add some fizz back to it.

Over the years, I've tried tinkering with it:
I put narrower pre-'77 handlebars on it, which I prefer. It still felt like a dull '80s Sports.
I laced a GH6 Dynohub into the front wheel...because I had it. Still a dull '80 Sports.
I tried to fit a Tektro R556 to it (at the time, there was no R559, so I converted it to nutted mount with the mounting bolt off an 800A), and found out it wouldn't clear the fender. And it was a dull '80 Sports.
Then I tried parts-building a Sturmey FW to put into the AW shell...only, to this day, it doesn't work. I got sick of troubleshooting it. On a dull '80 Sports.

And so it's been sitting in the shed ever since, waiting for me to come up with an angle. And I think I've figured it out.

About a year ago, I was given an Ammaco Monte Carlo - a 2000's UK-market department store 3-speed. It was one of those bikes that teetered on the edge of "bicycle shaped object" and "decent bicycle," but it did have a Sturmey-Archer RS-RF3 and aluminum Rigida EA3 wheels on it.



Or, at least it did have them on. It doesn't now!

I quickly unlaced the RS-RF3 for a Twenty project (not before testing the rear on the '80 Sports, as in the first pic) and shelved the Rigidas for the right project.

In the meantime, thanks to BF member @cooperryder, I was able to take my pick of 350 retired 2017 Tianjin Fuji-Ta ofos for my Bike Share Museum, and we split an additional bike between us for the wheels - he got the front wheel with the generator hub, I got the super cool Sturmey-Archer X-RD3 3-speed drum brake.




And so out came the Sports again tonight.




Objective: Overcome the frame's lack of pizzazz by building a sprightly Sports with aluminum rims and reliable-when-wet braking - possibly with some racks front and back so it can gain some much needed practical benefits over the '51.

This likely means way too much money put into a Sturmey XL-FDD or X-FDD front drum brake w/Dynohub to solve even more issues:

A. The space problem for the calipers,
B. The 36h front rim problem with the new Rigida - though the '80 would have used 36/36, the current wheelset is from a '76, if I recall correctly, so it's 32/40. Dynohub is from 1946.
C. The headlight problem - the 6V DC generator will open up the opportunity to put an LED in that front light, so it might work out well anyway.

If I can, I'd like to put a pre-'77 hockey stick chainguard on it too; the '77 guard looks terrible.

Part of me wishes Raleigh made a modern square-taper crankset with the Heron motif too. I could easily face the BB down and swap the spindle.

I just hope the whole thing works out. It's a tough job coming up with something interesting and exiting enough to justify passing on the '51s aesthetics for a given ride. Methinks the #1 trick to this will involve throwing the coffin reflector as far and hard into the trash as possible.




-Kurt

NatusEstInSuht

Looks like a fun build! Keep us posted.

JaccoW

A fun build indeed! Is the 77 a drum brake bike already? Otherwise that fork won't like one and you run the risk of bending/breaking it.

pastorbobnlnh 

The infamous 1980 New Hampshire "Stump Dump" Raleigh--- which retired to sunny South Florida--- lives on!

Even though it requires knee replacements, a new hip, and even a shoulder swapped out for a titanium one--- but who doesn't in FL? Fortunately it is under the care of one of Miami's best Bicycle Orthopedists!

cudak888 

The '80 was equipped with Weinmann brakes when new; never had a drum on it before.

I'm not particularly concerned, as the Raleigh Dawns were available with drum brakes and the same fork. Raleigh apparently widened and bulked up the fork crown in '79-80 as well, so I am not concerned at all.

They don't call me The Bike Doc for nothin'

-Kurt

JaccoW

Just don't spring for the XL-FDD version with modern housing as Smutpedaller did on his Raleigh Superbe. It made the fork steer really light one evening...

cudak888 

Well, no large diameter drum for this thing then. Really wouldn't mind a long-reach brake that would fit, but the R559 interferes with any hope of mounting, and the 900A may fit with some patience - but chances are it'll still interfere with the edges of the fender.

-Kurt

JaccoW

It should be fine with the regular 70mm X-FDD. I have heard the 90mm XL being compared to disc brakes when it comes to stopping power and especially 'stoppies' won't do the fork any good.

And those 20mm make a big difference.



(I have my own project coming up with the 90mm XL-RD5 (w) that I plan to match to the XL-FDD)

EDIT: Quite a bit of discussion going on in the commuting forum. Seems like the 70mm is the way to go. Also matches the size of your rear.

cudak888 

Well, this project wound up taking a much different turn than I thought.

I came to realize that adding a drum brake wouldn't make up for the lack of interest I have in this bike - it'd still be one less gear than I'm used to. What's more, I'm spoiled by the 4-speed FG of my '51 over any AW, so no 3-speed will do it.

Not to mention that taking the rear brake caliper out of the equation would make the flat Pletscher brake bridge - which looks more like it ought to be on an AMF Hercules - stick out like a sorer thumb than it already does.

Time for a new plan. Last night, I put that plan into motion by buying this guy:



It's a SRAM G9 9-speed internal hub with the next-best shifter to an over-the-bar trigger shifter - a thumb shifter.

I'm definitely going the restomod route with this one at this point, but it should be an interesting build. Not sure if I'm digging the black hub, but it is what it is.

-Kurt

jackbombay

A hub is easy enough to paint, most of the hub is so protected even rattle can hardware store paint holds up well. I painted a hub 21 years ago with a rattle can and it still looks good.

I can see the black looking kinda cool, but I'm also not sure I would choose black.

Wildwood 

Let’s hope that after all the false starts, the thing doesn’t ride like an old truck. But components re-purpose rather easily.

bikemig 

I think a black hub will look sharp on the 80s Raleigh; cool project.

pastorbobnlnh 

...and just think Kurt, with all those gears, you can ride that Sports back to NH and be able to tackle the hills easily when you turn away from the seacoast and head for the mountains!

cudak888 

I wouldn't expect anything without catalyst to hold up while lacing a rim. Wouldn't dare go over the factory finish with silver unless it was really nicked up.

At least the frameset is silver. I'll be happy if it rides well.

My '51 already rides like an old truck, but a really nice old truck. The '80 has always been lighter, but without the fizz.

The only thing I regret is that the SRAM shifters change only one gear per click. You could power shift through an entire 7-speed freewheel (or cassette) with Suntour's Accushift thumb shifters. Pity I haven't found any 1:1-pull 9-speed shifters that do just that.

-Kurt

Wildwood 

I’m always impressed with the diversity of bicycle preferences.
I like racy.
Many like tourers with looong chainstays.
Read the beach cruiser forum and pedal forward bikes are raved.
There's room for the ‘rides like a nice old truck’ crowd.


Maybe you could get a quadruple wide rear rack and make it look more a nice old truck! That would be OK, too.

cudak888 

I'd give my two back teeth for a 531 frame built with a full chaincase attachment and North Road handlebars. I enjoy going fast on upright bars...

-Kurt

cudak888 

Bob, I missed your comment - you must have posted it while I was responding to the others.

I calculated the gear inches on the G9 with the 19t it arrived with, and with the 46t crankset of the '80 Sports:

33.9|38.2|44.5|50.4|56.6|66.1|75.5|85.0|99.2

The '51 Sports, by comparison, is approximately (not really sure if it's an 18t or not in the back right now):

46.1|54.5|69.1|87.5

I usually sit around 2nd gear most of the time, except for starting out, and third has always felt a wee bit on the high side. Fourth makes no sense unless you're in a 18mph sprint after the USPS guy when a package isn't delivered. I'm essentially gaining two additional low gears with the G9, and about three additional (two low, one high) usable mid-range gears. The rest is exuberance.

Of course, I could always put a 21t cog on it and get an even more usable range:

30.7|34.6|40.3|45.6|51.2|59.8|68.3|76.9|89.7

It's a bit of a drop from 46.1 though, and I'd rather not have a bunch of crawling gears sitting near first. The shifter will run through 5 of the 9 gears with a single press up, but downshifts are single-return; you can't dump it going down - which is my biggest love of the Sturmey 4-speed trigger - I can dump it from 69 to 46 gear inches in a single throw.

I'm not thrilled about losing that, but it's not like there's a 9-speed thumb-actuated 1:1 shifter on the market today that'll dump all the gears on one click of the lever.

-Kurt

canklecat

I recently chatted with a fellow who received an Ofo donor bike via a local outreach program for getting homeless folks back into the mainstream. He has an apartment through the assistance program too. The city bus gets him within a mile of his job, so he takes the Ofo bike for the remainder of his commute.

The Ofo is pretty heavy but has some impressive components. Kinda wish I'd snagged one when they were at giveaway prices last year. I'd move the components to a lighter frame for an errand bike.

cudak888 

Sounds like one of the 200 ofos that CitySquare received from the Dallas fleet when they were donated - I believe the local ofo operations manager was a beneficiary of the program. Anther 350 went to Bikes for Tykes in Richmond Hills, and Steve's Certified Auto Repair is selling them with 100% of the proceeds to the charity - posted the story too: https://bikesharemuseum.com/an-ofolly-good-cause/

It's worth picking one up for the X-RD3 and generator hub, and the band brake is fun to play with too. Fenders are pretty sturdy as well and could be repurposed. I'm still holding onto the unlaced rim, as there is a remote possibility I may be able to get a Spin that is missing the front wheel (if the management company handling such decides to work with me) for the Bike Share Museum.

You can shave seven pounds off them just by removing the solid tires and drilling the rims to accept a Schrader or Presta valve. The frames are hellishly heavy, but part of the problem (for me) is that I can't get the dropper seatposts on them high enough. There's a workaround trick where you loosen the dropper seatpost and use a conventional clamp as you raise the fixed section, but I haven't tried it yet.

Haven't weighed them yet, or the LimeBike that recently came in - which is, unfortunately, beat so hard that it needs another set of rims, a basket, and a handlebar from a donor. Lime has expressed zero interest in working with the Museum (namely, no responses to anything I've sent out), so I have to rely on cities and police departments to get these legally. According to what I've heard, I'm six months late.

That said, the wheelsets from the ofos could probably make for a really fun IGH conversion on a '90s MTB.

-Kurt

cudak888 

The spokes arrived two hours ago. It seems like the Sapim spoke calculator errs on the long side, as I had to grind 2mm of spoke out the tips of each spoke nipple once the wheel was built and tensioned. Not a bad thing; good to have more threads engaged than less, but I usually wind up with spokes easily 4mm shorter using other calculators.



As it sits, the wheel is about 6.5 pounds. Not a lightweight, but neither is my '51 Sports' FG Dynofour and Westrick stainless rim.

I still have to respace the rear triangle and re-align the dropouts, and the correct keyed washers arrive later this week via Amazon. I sprung for the Shimano Nexus washers, as they supposedly fit the SRAM with minimal trimming and are less prone to slippage.

There will be no need to file the dropout slots either, as - by 1980 - Raleigh had already updated the dropouts to the industry-standard 10mm from the old 8mm Sturmey standard. Like Shimano, SRAM's keyed axle flats don't align with the dropout slot, but vertically.




The factory G9 shifter is proving to be a problem, as it won't fit the North Road handlebar (and for those in the know: Yes, the bars are the narrower pattern, they're from a '75 Sports) without interfering with the curve. The G9 shares its 1:1 cable travel pull with all other SRAM trigger shifters (and brifters, if I was doing something with drops), so I can always use something like a SRAM X-7 trigger that doesn't have the built-in indicator.



Still, I don't really like trigger shifters that only actuate a single downshift per click (I prefer the old Suntour Accushift design - one deep push and you've gone across the whole range), and I wouldn't mind running a thumb shifter.

A SRAM 9-speed barcon and the Paul thumbie handlebar adapter would do the job, but it ain't cheap to get both (I also nagged the Bicycle Mechanics forum about the MicroSHIFT Dynasys-compatible 11 speed shifter). I'll probably have to give up this idea - unless someone here can hook me up with a smoking deal




I also pulled off the hideous, CPSC-mandated "coffin" rear reflector off the fender, which gives me two holes in the fender to play with:



Sure enough, sitting right above the Raleigh was the perfect inspiration for the solution, in yet another dockless machine: A LimeBike, also from my Bike Share Museum. These have a really spiffy setup, with DC wiring running all the way from their 6V front generator hubs to the integrated LED light in the back through a J channel built into the bottom of the fender:



Yes. the rim is toast.



The rear light/reflector is an innocuous enough - and circular - design. It fits well enough with the restomodded Raleigh Sports concept, and the new plan is to go with a modern 6V DC front generator hub (no Dynohubs this time) in the front anyway. The peaked fender ought to be the perfect place to hide the wires on the Raleigh.

Only problem is that getting a Lime legally is extremely difficult. I waited around for months until the County hooked me up with this one, and I'm sure that cracked rim is evidence enough that I'm waiting for another one to show up, just to restore the one for the Museum. Lime themselves are phasing bicycles out in most markets, and the infuriating thing is that they'd rather scrap these than donate them to any organization (or individual).

It'll be a bloody tall order to dig yet another LimeBike up just for it's taillight, even though I could use the rest of the parts and then some.

-Kurt

JaccoW

Just order a B+M Secula Plus taillight. They are relatively cheap if you order through one of the German webshops like bike24.com

Also superior in visibility.

cudak888 

The hurricane must have USPS spooked, because all my Monday deliveries arrived today, which included the Shimano Nexus anti-rotation washers for this hub. I also went to one of the LBS'es and got some rim strip:



Spreading the frame in the stand without the BB spindle out of it was a pain in the butt, but it is happily at 135 from an ambiguous and questionably centered 113. The seatstays look funky, but the brake bridge is centered and the frame passes the alignment test. I'll fine-tune the stays for looks later.

I initially tried using my Park dropout alignment tools, but one of them wouldn't tighten down on the narrow Raleigh dropouts, believe it or not. I found it easier to eyeball the 135 by using my Campagnolo 120/126mm alignment tools. Despite this limitation, I've been finding more and more that they've been proving themselves superior to the Park alignment tools every time I pit one against the other.



I installed the wheel, but like the picture in my initial post, it didn't fill the rear fender correctly (and also rubbed the stays at the back). This is partially a manufacturing problem: Raleigh ditched the tubular brake bridge they'd used for 50 years on these for a kickstand plate on these post-1977 (Or is it post '78? Don't remember for sure) models, but they jammed the same old tubular brake bridge fender clip onto these kickstand plates.

I took out a link of chain, and the wheel pulled forward quite a bit. Though it looks better in the pictures, the hub is at the tip of the dropouts - and the wheel also looks a touch too far forward now. I've got to get a half link to get this positioned right.





On the plus side, there were no major issues installing this after respacing the frame to 135mm. It took a hell of a lot of effort to grind and file the Shimano Nexus washers to fit the SRAM axles though. What a pain.

I also took a gamble on some downtube cable clips from eBay. The seller claimed were 1", not 1-1/8", but they appeared 1-1/8" in the photos. Given that they were offset to the bottom for a single cable, I took a chance. I was right. They look good too and are fine looking alternatives to the usual cable stop.




I will probably substitute the SRAM 4mm shifter cable housing with 5mm housing for a tighter fit in these clamps.


It is a bit on the ugly side, but not much more than the Lime's light - and the over-voltage protection is a big plus. Pity that it is not long enough to cover both screw holes - unless, of course, it happens to align better on the upper hole rather than the lower one.

I usually don't drill holes in frames, but I may make an exception on this one. A hole at the bottom bracket and an unobtrusive one under the headlug for internal wiring shouldn't be too bad. Better than putting a hole in the steerer tube and stem (!)

-Kurt

cudak888 

Sneaked out between the thunderstorms to get some better pictures of the bike and the hub's current position in the dropouts:








-Kurt

cudak888 

Still tinkering with it this evening. Somehow, I’ve wound up with a fair collection of orphaned long-reach Tektro dual-pivots, but not a single one of them is the model or reach I really want.

This is a 900A on the back of the Sports. The reach doesn’t require such a long arm - an 800A would suffice - but the black caliper does match the hub and provide contrast.

It also clashes with the whole C&V gestalt. Between the hub and black brakes on a fairly modern Raleigh Sports, this thing may be confused for a modern bike.

JaccoW

It is big enough, it just uses the bottom hole to guide the cable through.