Raleigh Road Ace to Fixie Project - colour options...

Hello folks,

I rescued a Raleigh Road Ace 531c frame from the local recycling centre and I'm going to use it to build a fixie. At least for a while anyway, it'll probably be rebuilt to original spec one day as and when I get bored of the fixed gear life and time/component availablility allows.

I've always liked the Gulf colours (as per classic GT40s and the current Aston Martin Le Mans cars) so I'm going to refinish the frame with those. A couple of reproduced Raleigh decals will finish it off nicely.

Does anyone have any opinions about the options below? I'm erring towards Option 3 as it's Gulf colours but also in the style of the specialist Raleigh frames of the 1980's- sort of a nod in both directions.

I think it could look very smart indeed....

Design 1:


Design 2:


Design 3:


Design 4:


Design 5


Cheers...

Have you go too much time on your hands ?

If you want a fade job then it has to be 3, the rest are a bit too "busy" IMHO.

Shaun

Midlife":237z8qjm said:

Have you go too much time on your hands ?

If you want a fade job then it has to be 3, the rest are a bit too "busy" IMHO.

Shaun

Click to expand...

+1, #3 looks very classy

Midlife":tcz70mlf said:

Have you go too much time on your hands ?

Click to expand...

Haha - yeah, it was a slow day at work and I'd got Photoshop open...!

It's looking like #3 might be the option...

However, someone (with more Photoshop skills than me!) suggested this which I really quite like for its simplicity.

For me, the one immediately above's the best by a distance. Couple of thoughts...

At first, I wasn't sure if a Raleigh decal on the top tube looks right, but I'm not sure how else you could do it. Like the cars, and the one above, I'd definitely save the white for the decals...



Carry on Photoshopping!

Personally I think it should say Gulf instead of Raleigh and your detail on the seat tube should be an outline of Le Mans

Yep this is definitely the best. It'll look great!

The last one posted is the best.
Fades looked nasty when they were "in" and Raleighs versions were horrid. I know they can look period but your colours re not ( although nice) so go classy with pannels instead.
I also reckon differnt coloured lugs look tacky ie one orange, one blue etc.
How about a solid base with panels of the other two colours?

Cheers for your replies - very handy.

I had the day off work yesterday and spent some of it stripping the finish off the frame. It was a great surprise to find that under the paint, the drop-outs had been very nicely chromed to about 2" up the forks and a good bit further at the back. Very odd that Raleigh would have bothered to do this and then paint over it!

Here are a couple of before and after pics:

Before:


After:




I'll probably decide to leave these bits uncovered and then lacquer over them when I lacquer the rest of the frame.

With regard to the painting, pretty much everyone who has seen the designs prefers the last one by some distance. I guess that's why my friend (who came up with it) is a graphic designer and I'm not!! I'm going to get the proper Raleigh decals made up - the font in the examples is reasonably cose but not right - the correct font is called 'Avenir' and someone at Raleigh simply joined the G to the H.

Cheers also for the Le Mans decal recommendation - coincidentally, if I finish it in time, this bike will be travelling to Le Mans with me in June, it'll be my 8th consecutive trip to Circuit de la Sarthe and the first one with a bike which will hopefully enable me to get around the track a bit better during the race.

I'll post a few updates when there are some to report - it's going to take quite a long time to get the frame into an acceptable condition for re-finishing...

Hi, I'd just say whichever version you go for, the Raleigh transfer on the top tube would look better being placed further forward towards the front of the bike.