Forgive the frankly terrible photograph of an otherwise beautiful bike. I was in haste to capture its current state in the sunlight. Even without having cleaned it, this bike’s “sugar plum” paint job sparkles. The seller on Marketplace, asking $75, was the original purchaser, having bought this for his wife in Syracuse, NY in the 80s. It has been kept in his basement and barely ridden at all. Everything is original except for the tires (perhaps tubes?), stem, handlebar, brake levers, and grips (as sold it would have had a Sakae polished aluminum stem with drop bars and appropriate levers).
I have been following this bike for many weeks and finally was able to make the trip up to Fredericksburg to take a look. I want to make this a chill, mostly upright bike for my wife to cruise around with me on pavement. After ensuring the seat post and stem weren’t seized, I forked over the cash and gleefully loaded it into my car. Why am I so excited about this particular bike?
This is a 1986 Raleigh Olympian - a model in the Raleigh USA lineup. The catalog, for reasons lost to time it seems, mis-states the frame material as some Raleigh-rebranded double butted CroMo steel (“Raleigh 555”), but the decal on the bike itself indicates a different variant, Raleigh 575SL (SL = “super light”) triple-butted. Digging through some bicycle forums confirms that the decal isn’t specific to my 1986 example, and while Raleigh may be pretending at some Reynolds-style branding, it does at least seem to be some very nice steel. The bike model itself wasn’t necessarily one of their top models in the whole lineup, but it appears to have been the top of the Sport Touring range. It includes some really nice touches:
- Shimano Light Action front and rear derailleurs with ratcheting friction shifters (goosebumps here) on a stem mount
- lovely Sakae cranks, 110/74 BCD that should allow me to make the gearing a bit easier
- Sakae fluted alloy seat post
- Suntour freewheel that still feels pretty nice
- Dia Compe caliper brakes with a quick release on the front (the rear on the mixte doesn’t have this because it’s bottom pull)
- Sealed bearing hubs, special seals on the BB cup (even though it has caged bearings) and caged bearings in the headset, but everything is smooth spinning with no apparent notching
Anyhow, I’m currently disassembling the bike so I can give it a good clean and check out the inside and treat it with rust prevention. Then I want to give the whole thing a gentle polish to really bring out that sparkle. Long term plans include a Nitto quill stem and some VO or Riv handlebars, easier gearing, and probably a 650B conversion (folks have made it work on this exact model with Tektro R559 long reach brakes) so I can squeeze some 42mm tires in there. Fun project for me, nicer and more comfortable bike for Valerie!