samkl 

bikemig 

You're not going to go wrong with a miyata 1000 lt for randonneuring but yeah I'd be sorely tempted by that raleigh competition. Most older bikes with long reach side pulls (or center pulls) will let you run 28c-32c tires with fenders. I picked up a 1985 cannondale ST 400 I'm planning on using for long distance events.

70s era racing bikes are very versatile because they typically have eyelets and took long reach brakes. The downside with them is that they are 120 mm in the rear. No big deal to spread to 126 but I've never spread one to 130. If you want to stick to 2 x 7 or 3 x 7 gearing that doesn't matter. If you want to run more modern gearing, it might.

clasher

I did part of a series on an updated miyata 1000. The stock wheels are definitely heavy... the rear is 40 spoke. I built some ultegra hubs on open pros and had the bike down to 24lbs with fenders and a brooks cambium on it. I didn't really make any effort to save weight on the build, doing it again I would use something like these wheels but maybe build something with a wider rim but mostly the same semi-aero low spoke count wheel. I still like the miyata a lot and find the ride to be incredibly smooth with compass 32mm tires. I do think I'll use the bike on some rides next year. One nice thing about the miyata is the third bottle cage, I miss that when I'm on my carbon road bike.

Tourist in MSN

As Bikemig noted, the rear end at 120mm could be an issue. I have an old Italian bike (mine is Columbus, not Reynolds) where I pull the stays apart to be able to drop in a 126mm hub with a six speed cluster. It takes a bit of effort to put a wheel in it, but it works. I tried to cold set the frame to 126mm, but it was like trying to bend a leaf spring, so I gave up trying because of fear of damaging it.

I worked in a bike shop that sold Raleighs in the early 70s. Most of the other mechanics switched to Suntour rear derailleurs and Huret Luxe front derailleurs, but I preferred a Suntour front derailleur. I do not recall any of the Raleighs from that era with bar end shifters, I think they were all downtube shifters. But I switched my bike to bar end shifters in the late 70s or early 80s, I used Shimano Dura Ace bar ends instead of Suntour.

If you get the Raleigh and use a freewheel on it, before you install a freewheel, make sure you have the correct freewheel removal tool to take it off again. It is getting more difficult to find the correct tools for that sort of thing.

Aubergine 

bikemig 

It can be difficult spreading a quality frameset, no doubt about it. If sticking with friction, I'd opt for suntour as well over pretty much anything else as well. Shimano freewheels are readily available and Park makes a freewheel tool. The biggest downside with a freewheel is that you are limited in gearing choices but 3 x 7 with a wide ranging 7 speed 14-28 gives you plenty of gearing options.

samkl 

unterhausen

I don't really remember the Competition, looks like it was a down-scale Pro? Anyway, I did my first season of randonneuring on my '80s racing bike. It was okay. There were things about it that were sub-optimal, like the lack of fender mounting. It was by far my fastest series, but other things factor into that. If you found an International, then I would unreservedly say you should get that, but I'm not so sure about a Competition. I would say a good rando bike is closer to a racing bike than a touring bike, but there are better bikes out there for rando than this.

You didn't really say what your distance goals were. I rode a full series on my gravel bike, and it is heavy. 200km on a heavy bike is one thing, but for longer rides it's going to slow you down.

Bandera

The Raleigh Competition models of the 70's were full 531 tubing and came from the Carlton facility. Like the Internat'l they were a domestic British design for club riders of the era who would fit a saddle bag and mudguards one weekend for a fast paced club ride/tour and remove both to fit the "sprint" (tubular) race wheels the next to compete in club time trials or hill-climbs. The design premium was on a light quick pleasant riding machine capable of handling a self-supported load at pace for long distances on rough secondary roads in all weathers. Sound familiar?

That being said a >40 YO Carlton of any model could stand a thorough examination/re-build and a trip to the flat table/fork jig before "modernizing" w/ well chosen components. Many are fully re-purposed w/ full braze-ons suites, a host of suitable doo-dads and a re-paint for a very long and useful service life.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/retrora...mpetition.html

clasher

The ride on mine is really smooth... and if you want to get lighter, check out how much your wheels weigh, I bet if you have the stock ones they're really heavy. I don't recall how much weight I saved with my wheels but it's probably the easiest place to cut a lot... since I rebuilt mine from a terrible flatbar conversion I did put nitto bars and a stem on so that was likely stuff than the stock ones. I also don't use any racks for my randonneur bags, instead I use dill pickle gear bags that are light and easy to mount.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks. I have forgotten almost everything about the 1970s Raleighs from my days as a mechanic at the bike shop, and the Competition was a model I could not remember. Being a Carlton bike, it should be easy to change bottom brackets to a modern cartridge unit, as I think only the Nottingham bottom brackets had the proprietary Raleigh thread pattern.

It was common back then for all bikes to use water bottle cages that came with straps that held the cages to the tubing, threaded brazed on mounts for water bottles back then were extremely rare. No need to braze them on now, just buy them at Velo Orange.
https://velo-orange.com/collections/...tle-cage-clamp

unterhausen

The Sheldon Brown link makes it look like the geometry might be a little more slack than the results to a google image search. I suppose the geometry might have changed over the years. And it does have eyelets.

I definitely have an anti-Raleigh bias. Their response to the bike boom was to make as many bikes as they could and many frames were really poor quality. So I would approach any '70s Raleigh of any level with a high degree of suspicion. I was surprised when I found out that Peter Weigle did 650b conversions on Internationals. Yes, I am really biased.

Bandera

I have similar biases against other Marques of the era, but not against Carlton which served/serves very well indeed despite or because of it's idiosyncratic British design & production.
The qualities designed into Carlton models, which were often Audax machines, match very closely to the "modern" requirements of LD riders as noted above. Go figure.
If I was looking for a Competition model to re-fit for LD riding today I'd prefer the longer wheelbase and more generous clearance of the MK II to the GS, but either in the right frame-size would do me well.

For the OP: Getting enough seat time on two different machines of the same era in a variety of terrain, weather and road surfaces will lead to two questions that decide "which" is the LD choice.
1) Which is the best fit?
B) Which bike would I rather be on after a poor night's sleep heading out for many hours on steep, unfamiliar, badly paved wet roads into a cold headwind all day?

If one has already selected a bike for LD riding avoiding the "grass is greener" syndrome and settling in to get seat time/familiarity and addressing the maintenance, modification and accessorizing on the machine is a good use of time, effort and $,$$$ that can be put into the riding.

-Bandera

Tourist in MSN

I worked on them, and since I was low on the seniority list mostly I worked on the Nottingham bikes including the 3 speed bikes, thus I agree with you on the low quality. But, I thought that the Carlton bikes were quite good. When I was working at that Raleigh shop, the Grand Prix (a Nottingham bike) was still a cottered crank where most of the other brands were using cotterless cranks.

Agree on Carlton frames.

I would add another criteria, since a 70s frame will likely be ridden as a 6 or 7 speed bike, is there something about it that makes that shortcoming (compared to 8, or 9, or 10, or 11, or ...) worth putting up with because of other advantages?

A lot of things can be done to modernize an old frame. My early 1960s Italian bike now has clincher wheels instead of the original tubulars, a modern triple crank, modern clipless pedals, etc. I also decided to put modern brake levers on it and a threadless stem that uses a quill to threadless adapter. But I still am using the original downtube friction shifters, vintage Mafac brakes and the original front derailleur,

clasher

Another thing; you could use both bikes for doing brevets, I've used at least four different bikes to do randonneur rides. Doing 200 or 300K on a road bike without any real luggage is pretty fun, I think...

Bandera

Not for me.
There are traditional Audax style machines in current production using lugged steel designed for130 spacing, modern gearing/brakes and with a full compliment of braze-ons from Mercian, Bob Jackson and previously Soma.
C&V heresy but my '74 International is not going under the torch for uber-modification, being revived to "period correctness" or some half-baked LD compromise when a new machine with the same well proven club rider's design and modern production/QC can replace it as a winter/wet/LD bike for reasonable $$$$. Pic attached.

samkl 

Bandera

Tourist in MSN

I like the Velo Orange Pass Hunter I bought a couple years ago. The frame is a bit heavy, but I did not weigh it before I built up the bike so I can't say what it weighs. Mine is the older rim brake model, no longer sold.

And I bought a 2017 Raleigh Grand Prix this past spring, steel frame and it is pretty light weight. Rides nice in my opinion.

But everyone has a different opinion on what a frame feels like. What I think feels soft, you might think is stiff.

samkl 

Bandera

samkl 

Oh, oops. I thought Bob Jackson and Mercian were semi-custom but I see they have off-the-rack options.

Still, the frame alone is 4-8x as much as an old Raleigh. I guess part of the appeal for me is finding a hidden gem for cheap and turning it into something capable and unique.

VintageRide

Built up this 1981 Fuji S12S into a low trail 650B bike - anywhere from about the mid '70's until 1982 or so, the America is also the same geometry and is all chrome moly tubing as well as hand made, the S12S only has the 3 main tubes in straight gauge but still has a nice ride and is stable as well as responsive, at least when setup with a front bag. One could easily go the 700C route as well. I am using 42mm Grand Bois Hetres with no issues and it is great on gravel and dirt trails or roads.Several BF members have done 650b conversions with this model because it works so well. The 1981/82 would have braze on cables guides on the top tube and one set of water bottle mounts - I have been thinking of having another set installed along with eyelets on the fork for the front rack and repainting the frame, the bike is certainly worth the effort.


One day I might get an older Shimano XT rear derailleur, such as an M730 and a TA triple but it works fine as is, had the rear spacing spread from 126mm to 135mm to accommodate a Shimano Mountain 11-34 9 speed cassette, works great with Campagnolo Ergo 10 speed shifters. All you really need are Dia Compe 750 centre pull brakes if going to 650b.Not many vintage bikes will accept 42mm tires and fenders without some modification which makes these Fujis perfect candidates.

rhm

On the Classic and Vintage subforum we often see a question phrased more or less like the following: "What vintage frame should I be looking for?" But I don't think it's a very good question, because the answers tend to limit what the potential buyer is looking for, rather than expand his or her search. I think you should look at anything that fits certain characteristics. Those seem to be lightweight double butted tubing (Reynolds 531 or Columbus SL or the equivalent) and the correct size.

Once those criteria are met, I would consider price, condition of the paint, and then such things as fender eyelets, tire clearance, etc. I lump these together because you have to take them together. A good 531 frame with totally trashed paint is going to cost a lot less than one with good paint-- in the right circumstances they often turn up very close to free. If a frame has good paint, you pay extra for that, and you probably don't want to modify it much, so then you require the correct clearances and eyelets etc to be in place already, or you compromise; but if the paint is already trashed, you have the option of having a frame builder modify the frame to fit your needs.

For example, I was at a swap meet several years ago and I made the mistake of showing a little too much interest in a cruddy looking old frame that the seller assured me was a Holdsworth 531 Special that had been modified and repainted. It came with a Campagnolo headset worth $50, and at the end of the day the seller gave me a hard sell and talked me into giving him $50 for it on the logic that he could easily sell the headset for that, but he didn't want to remove it. I really didn't mean to come home with another project! But I don't regret it. I later had further modifications made to the frame --bosses for centerpull brakes, front rack, different cable routing, etc. I even had the rear dropouts replaced --vertical dropouts in place of the classic Campagnolo horizontal ones. And then I had it powder coated. I ended up spending a bit more than I would have spent on a comparable frame with good paint (such as a Raleigh International or an early Competition), but the result came a lot closer to being exactly what I wanted, and the bike has served me well. I've ridden it thousands of miles now, including three fleches, a complete SR series, 1000 and 1200 km brevets, a couple multi-day tours, etc. You can read more about that particular bike in this thread: https://www.bikeforums.net/19234628-post1.html

My point is not that you need to find a Holdsworth 531 Special with terrible paint, but that you keep your eyes open and see what comes your way. The Raleigh Competition may be exactly the right thing --since @samkl mentioned Huret Jubilee, it's probably an early one with eyelets and relatively relaxed geometry, and if the Jubilee derailleurs aren't exactly what you want, selling them may nicely offset the price of the frame.

samkl 

Thanks for all of the good advice. I decided against it. It would've needed new wheels and all sorts of mechanical upgrades if I were to feel comfortable riding it long distances. The chainstays were also a little squished from a too-tight kickstand.

I carefully checked the frame for manufacturing defects, having heard horror stories about bike-boom era Raleighs, and I found a pinhole where one of the fork dropouts met the fork tubing from a bad welding/brazing job. Went all the way through. Maybe nothing, but I needed another excuse not to buy the bike, and that seemed like a suitable one.