Every 70s Raleigh I've ever seen (I own or have owned about 10 so far...) has 9/16" pedals. Its a standard; even Japanese cranks are threaded for 9/16" pedals even if the pedals are made in Japan. The French size is the only variation I've seen.

I dunno. I've got Raleigh pedals dating from the 50's to the 70's....all 9/16' X 20. Way back they may have had 1/2" as were many early 20th century models.

Usually the 1/2" stuff is reserved for Ashtabula cranks, like you see on older American stuff. My 1935 roadster uses 9/16".

The OEM pedal on the Sports goes on and off with ease, then:

I grabbed a pedal off of my 2019 Trek, which definitely has a 9/16"-20 stub. It will NOT go in my Raleigh's crank arm It does this as the previous poster says:
I may make it go with "cleaning" and grease and effort, but then it's screwed (or not) for original gear..

I've got a couple of 3 piece cottered cranks with 1/2"...one is actually a 5 pin and says British made on it. Union made some 1/2" pedals for the Thun style cranks too.

Still, none of this explains Greg's problem. Hey Greg, how about pictures of the crankarm and pedals. Maybe there's a visible clue for the sleuths in the crowd.

Edit. Strike the 5 pin. Checked it.

Maybe get ahold of a 9/16 tap and chase the threads?

Cool! If you get a chance, put up some photos? I've not heard or nor seen something like that.

I'm running Lyotard pedals on my 1972 Superbe. They work fine on my older stuff too. MKS made a nice copy of that pedal (Sylvan Touring) which works as well on the Superbe as they do on my Velo Orange cranks, and my Campy crankset on my Paramount. So if you have a crankset that is made to a metric thread size and pitch, its entirely a new one on me. I've got more three speeds than any other kind of bike. The only explanation I have is the cranks you have are not made in the UK. India or China would be my first guesses, not having worked on any bikes from those countries, but both have made/make Raleigh copies. I'm interested to find how this works out.

It's a head scratcher for me. I know what the consensus is on 9/16" yet my tools and the pedals I have are showing a "metric" fit. What I would like to find is a specification drawing of a period correct Raleigh pedal; that would be the Holy Grail for me. What I've found so far is the archival records of Raleigh Industries is being held by Nottinghamshire County in the UK. Much like here in the U.S. International Harvester archives are held by the Wisconsin State Historical Society.

The bike in question is a 1972, there are "Made in England" scripts on the end pieces of the pedal set. Also I have a Churchill Deluxe with pedals that also fit the same way though their script says "Made in Germany".

9/16-20 and 14-1.25 is soooo close

Based on the 'Made in England' bit that will be 9/16". I'm a fan of Lyotard pedals. When looking for them, since I have no French bikes, I make sure to look for the ones that are stated as having 'English threads'. Those are the ones that fit everything except French bikes. Here is Mr. Brown on the topic:
(https://www.sheldonbrown.com/pedals.html)

• Most pedals have 9/16" x 20 tpi threads.
• Pedals for one-piece cranks are 1/2" x 20 tpi.
• Older French bicycles used a 14 mm x 1.25 mm thread, but these are quite rare. French-threaded pedals are commonly labeled "D" and G" (French for "droite" and "gauche" (right and left). A French pedal will start to thread into a 9/16 x 20 crank (and vice versa), but will soon bind. Do not force it, or it will damage the crank. Aluminum French cranks are easily rethreaded to 9/16" x 20 TPI.

Could the Trek have metric threading??

I've looked at SB also. I doubt the Trek is metric because it can take any off the shelf pedal available today as 9/16. I've tried swapping pedals. The ones off of the 2019 Trek, a 9/16, won't fit without excessive force. I can too easily screw in the Raleigh pedals in the Trek's crank. It's loose enough I wouldn't trust putting any torque on it to secure, just ain't enough thread engagement.

OK- that is exactly how the French thread acts when going into English thread- just a bit loose. So somehow you have some pedals that are 'Raleigh' but French thread, with matching cranks.

Here's two, one is standard cottered and the other is CCM triangular cotterless style. To be fair, the CCM 'triplex' BB's came in a regular 3 piece as well as a larger roadster 3 piece style. The regular models are usually tapped for 9/16. Pretty sure I have another standard drive side with 1/2 inch but can't find it.
I collected some weird stuff from a store close out a few decades ago.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...667c9832da.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...764fbca463.jpg

Thank you!

Now I have 3 "English" bikes. 2 Raleigh: 1 Sports (1972) 1 Colt (1976) and 1 Churchill Deluxe which I think is made by Raleigh but not sure of the year. All their pedals interchange easily.
So the question I think is: Did Raleigh use metric crank/pedals in some point or time frame of production? In car world there are Tech Service Bulletins, Dealer letters etc notifying of design change, supersession, and so on. I wonder if any exists in bicycle world?

Thanks!
If I had to guess, they were made in France? I know Sturmey had production on the Continent. I know for sure its not a date thing... I've been super geeky about British 3-speeds ever since I discovered the Lake Pepin 3-speed tour. This is the first I've heard of something like this. Oddly, I once refurbished a French made Riva Sport 3-speed from the 1950s that used a Brompton hub and had English threaded pedals.

Here's a Raleigh branded EA1 rim 'Made in France'. I have a matching EA1 Michelin World Tour tire 'Made in England' Can't find pic of it but it's here, somewhere.
England and France have had a love-hate relationship since the dawn of time it seems.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d3dfa7dc02.jpg

Yeah this pre-dates "country of origin" trade rules. I've noticed too the build quality seems a tad rough. Cuts for clamps such as the seat post have large burrs, the tube sockets don't have fillets from brazing but gaps at the top of the socket to tube. Over all it's good and rides well before the tear down maintenance but not quite the craftsmanship I see in much earlier Raleighs.

I saw a trade film of the Raleigh Works, man they really cranked the frames out just hammering them together in jigs. Then they went through a check station for straightness and then on to brazing. There were of lot women in the brazing line. The paint section was Wow! hand dipped in a paint tank no gloves! Must have been a good leveling paint. I would say the film was post-war 40s or early 50s

Yup,, that's a popular fave film here. Assuming that was a lead based paint, I wonder how long those guys survived after retirement. Or the cadmium platers in the Sturmey division. Or even chrome for that matter.

Anecdotally, as a teen, I worked summers in my step fathers liquid chemical plant. I worked in a tank farm and subdivided railway tank cars into 45 gallon drums. I inhaled ( thru a mask) but was splashed, soaked and permeated with so many hence-banned chemicals it's scary. Perchloroethylene, Chorethelene Nu, Methylene Chloride, Caustic soda, acetates, acetones, you name it. At 63, I'm surprised, I guess I don't have a predisposition to getting cancer from these products...yet.

I have a dozen or more Raleigh cranksets here, every one has 9/16" threads.
I did stumble on a few boxes of Raleigh look a like pedals a few years ago that were made in India, those turned out to be French threaded for some reason. They were copies of the older Raleigh pedals from the 50's but minus the actual Raleigh logo. The brand was three initials that I never did figure out what it stood for, only that they were labeled, in English, "Made in India, for sale in Thailand". I seem to remember the brand being OTP, but don't quote me. I found two and a half cases of them at a flea market in FL about 15 years ago for $10 total. I ended up having to go through every last box because not every box of pedals contained a matched pair, I had to pair up left and rights and ended up with more rights than lefts. They sold on fleabay fast though I think I ended up with 6 extra right pedals and 26 matched pair or so. I broke down the remaining right pedals and used the rubber blocks to repair a few other older pedals over the years.

I did have a Canadian sold Mikado 'Sports', which was an entry level type 10 speed road bike, which had SR cottered cranks on it, the bike was most likely from 1979 or 80. The cranks had 1/2 threads. When I got it, the right crank had the broken stub of the pedal axle in it, the left crank was stripped. It left here with two 9/16" pedals.

I had a small frame, single speed bike badged only as DERBY Austria. with an oddball set of aluminum Thompson style cranks that were threaded with the wrong threads on the wrong side. the right side had left hand pedal threads and the left had right hand threads. It was far from new when I had it, and it had apparently survived for many years of use like that before I found it in a lot of bikes from a local auction.

There are a good many oddities out there, and there's no telling sometimes how they came about, so nothing would surprise me when it comes to something having odd threads or mismatched parts. Bike companies also improvised as needed during the bike boom to keep production up, so if on a particular week they ran short of 9/16" pedal axles or pedals, I wouldn't put it past them to have threaded a few batches of cranks so they could use pedals from a different source just to keep up with production.
While I'd have to guess that was less likely with Raleigh bikes from England back then, they did have factories all over the world. Also keep in mind that tolerances change as tooling wears over time, so the thread fit on an early model is likely much tighter than that of a later model on any production run.

There's also the fact that threads can be cut at varying depths, the percentage of thread depth can vary, as can the angle of the cut.
My guess would be that if they're Raleigh cranks, chances are they're 9/16" threaded and the threads are either fouled with rust, or slightly damaged in some way.
When using a thread pitch gauge to compare 9/16x20 threads vs 14x1.25mm threads, its very hard to tell the difference in pitch, the two are very close, but they are different. As is the diameter difference. The difference in thread pitch is more visible in thread count over a longer section than just trying to compare the cut of 7 or 8 threads on crank or pedal axle.
I've had crank arms that were known to be French threaded which were well worn over the years that would almost take a 9/16" pedal without re-tapping the threads. The 9/16" pedal would thread in all but the last two threads or so by hand and likely wouldn't have taken much to thread in all the way yet they were marked 14x1.25.
I was never a big fan of just running a 9/16" tap through the 14mm crank arms, the difference in diameter is far less than the depth of the threads so about 1/4 of the threads end up being cut through existing threads at the end of the cut. It works most of the time but is not idea for hard use. Its likely fine though in a steel crank arm used on a three speed for pleasure riding.

How about a nice Raleigh ladies' Sports trike conversion?

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...03171097764954

https://scontent.fric1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...b1&oe=617FFC74

His 'n' hers Sportses for $150 in MI.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...97552820635329

https://scontent.fric1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...a6&oe=61A0B0A2

10 seems to be the answer.
All my Raleigh and Hercules have 10 at the front.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...19ec54b377.jpg


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8c09ff1e00.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3d8f08f423.png

10 per side is what my '74 Sports had in it when it came into my possession although it was dry as as bone:cry:
Rolling smooth now.

Very helpful. Thx

This board ROCKS! Every bike I've acquired so far (except a Schwinn) has too many, too few, or no working balls. Thank you all for the posted info. I've got an order in for 100 of each size and gonna do it right.

Hi All,

It looks like Sun Ringle may no longer be making 26 x 1 3/8 rims anymore. I checked their 2021 rim chart and there's no 590 listed.
I need to re-lace the rear wheel on my Raleigh Superbe and I'd been planning on using an NOS Brampton 3-speed, which is 40 hole. I'd like to use an aluminium rim, but it would seem options are almost nil.
Has anyone heard different, regarding CR18's?

SJS Cycles in the UK has their own branded rims, which I may have to go with if I can't find anything else, but freight is gonna kill me down here in Australia

What did you find out?

Gratefully snipped from the above post:
Just because I was curious I measured the wrench flats on my pedals (as I wrote about in a few posts earlier). My micrometer measures them at 15.3mm and 0.6 inches. The 5/8" wrench was a better fit for me than a 16mm wrench.

The cranks arms have what looks like an embossed "V" in a rectangle, does that mean anything?

Several 3-speeds from a shop's collection in Ann Arbor MI, Many of them very cheap.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...43747945746506

https://scontent.fric1-2.fna.fbcdn.n...f3&oe=6181661D

Keep in mind these are English bicycles and the use of random BSW and BSF sizes continued into the 1970's.
Whitworth threads are 55 degree.vs 60.

Looks like the front of a ladies Sports and the back of an old Schwinn Town and Country Trike.