Cleaning up an oldie
Discussion
Hi all,
I've been commuting and occasionally going further on an old 1990ish Raleigh Record Sprint+ for a few years now, through London, Dublin and now Birmingham. I got it for free from my brother when he moved home from Oxford. It was originally on a 6spd cassette and all black frame, but an altercation with a parked car at high speed meant for the last few years it is on an upgraded 7spd cassette on new wheels and a found-in-the-back-of-a-bike-shop chromed touring front fork. It's got a pair of SPD pedals basically welded on, no amount of lube and force could make the right one move...
So it looked like this:
Stickers all peeling, bar tape falling apart, perished cables and pads. Well past time for a clean-up. First step, stripping off the ruined decals and stickers. A tough job! Took a couple of hours of (relatively) careful scraping and peeling, including off the wheels, leaving me with this:
An improvement! But just an aesthetic one. New cables all round, new brake pads and a new front caliper. All cheap e-bay buys, the bike is worth little enough, so this was very much a budget refurb:
I've never done all this before, so I learned a lot about keeping cables in tension and proper alignment. Not enough to do it on my good bike, but still a lot. It took a while but I tracked down an appropriate front fork in the right colour, for very cheap. Finally, a £2 touch-up paint pen, a good spit and polish and some new bar-tape leaves me with the bike in its current state:
Much happier! I'd like a black rear caliper and was tempted to remove the gears and go single-speed but I like the option of climbing gears even if it stays in the same gear 95% of the time commuting. Next up, a new saddle!
I've been commuting and occasionally going further on an old 1990ish Raleigh Record Sprint+ for a few years now, through London, Dublin and now Birmingham. I got it for free from my brother when he moved home from Oxford. It was originally on a 6spd cassette and all black frame, but an altercation with a parked car at high speed meant for the last few years it is on an upgraded 7spd cassette on new wheels and a found-in-the-back-of-a-bike-shop chromed touring front fork. It's got a pair of SPD pedals basically welded on, no amount of lube and force could make the right one move...
So it looked like this:
Stickers all peeling, bar tape falling apart, perished cables and pads. Well past time for a clean-up. First step, stripping off the ruined decals and stickers. A tough job! Took a couple of hours of (relatively) careful scraping and peeling, including off the wheels, leaving me with this:
An improvement! But just an aesthetic one. New cables all round, new brake pads and a new front caliper. All cheap e-bay buys, the bike is worth little enough, so this was very much a budget refurb:
I've never done all this before, so I learned a lot about keeping cables in tension and proper alignment. Not enough to do it on my good bike, but still a lot. It took a while but I tracked down an appropriate front fork in the right colour, for very cheap. Finally, a £2 touch-up paint pen, a good spit and polish and some new bar-tape leaves me with the bike in its current state:
Much happier! I'd like a black rear caliper and was tempted to remove the gears and go single-speed but I like the option of climbing gears even if it stays in the same gear 95% of the time commuting. Next up, a new saddle!
Ha, yes. I was careful with the pedal! It is merely very tightly jammed on. I have a feeling my brother tried to forcibly remove it incorrectly while it was under his stewardship. He's more of a brute-force kind of operator. Needs some mechanical sympathy maybe...
And I know, there is a bend in the lower frame right behind the front fork. It's been there for years. It means the front wheel is a bit close to my feet, but other than that, it has survived pretty well. I'm sure it is a ticking time-bomb of destruction waiting to explode.
And I know, there is a bend in the lower frame right behind the front fork. It's been there for years. It means the front wheel is a bit close to my feet, but other than that, it has survived pretty well. I'm sure it is a ticking time-bomb of destruction waiting to explode.
Well, I got 6 months out of it post clean-up, but the bent frame has finally caught up with me. Luckily I was on the last uphill before home when the bike started to first creak, then CREAK. I got off to see what was happening, to find that the frame had just about sheared through. It then gave up the ghost quietly on the side of the road in a Birmingham suburb. It's the first bike I ever did a century on (in kms!) and it has been a faithful daily commuter for the last 4 years. I'll miss it.
Now in the market for a sensible cheap commuting bike that can be left locked outside near Birmingham City Centre every day!
Now in the market for a sensible cheap commuting bike that can be left locked outside near Birmingham City Centre every day!
I had a look at frames first, but the only parts really worth switching over are the wheels, everything else is pretty bottom-of-the-range. I'll strip it and keep the brakes, bars, saddle etc as spares, but I think old steel bikes in good condition are usually available for sub-£200 and if not I'll get a 5yr old alu Trek, Specialized or Giant with Sora/Tiagra to do the job with little fuss.
And of course I should have binned it after the first crash. It made the front end twitchy and was clearly not going to last. Oh well!
And of course I should have binned it after the first crash. It made the front end twitchy and was clearly not going to last. Oh well!
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