Raleigh Special Products 853-tubed road frame

David B

Old School Grand Master
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I bought one of the above recently from eBay and am curious to find out a bit more about it. The overall design and details (straight-blade steel fork, race number braze-on on underside of top tube, etc.) of the frame & fork are similar to the green/black '98 example featured in this brochure:

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/d/1 ... alogue.pdf

Mine is silver (with white decals) all over, however, and has a "r.s.p. team issue" decal on the seat tube; based on memories of Raleigh bikes of that time it probably dates to 1998/99, lacking the rear vertical dropouts, oversize down tube and circular silver head badge of the final R700 RSP models. Unlike the '98 models the seat stays are directly welded to the seat tube rather than being of the "capped" type attached near the seat cluster. Size is 56cm C-T which should just about be big enough for me. The frame has SC 1160 stamped on the underside of the BB shell; the frame number is also repeated in marker pen on the steerer tube.

As you can tell it is in rather tatty nick (still, what would you expect for just over 45 quid?) but is off to the powder coaters on Thursday morning.

Thanks in advance for pointers; I've attached a pic or two.

David
 

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Update to all of the above, and a key reason why I've been a bit quiet on RB of late....the frame is now repainted (white with a subtle "metallic" effect), or powder coated to be more exact, and built up. Red decals, bar tape, bottle cages and saddle set the whole thing nicely, whilst the rest of the components, other than a NOS 3TTT Status quill stem (Planet X), 27.0mm seatpin (eBay) and braze-on front mech (thanks to fellow RBer jm) ans some new cabling, were swapped over from my old pale blue Ribble 653. I re-used the Ultegra headset and UN52 BB unit that came with the Raleigh frame.

I've done a fair few miles in both wet and dry on it now and it's a lovely, stable bike to ride, yet in spite of being all steel and lacking a carbon fork, doesn't weigh a ton either. It's already put in a couple of convincing TT performances and come close to matching one of my course bests (set 3 years ago using a bike with tri-bars, whereas the Raleigh has none).

Photos and spec to follow at some point....

David
 
Re:

This project is, I'll be the first to admit, long overdue some "after" photos* but within the next week or so I should've made amends for that. The frame is still the same but I've recently veered from the retro path by kitting it out with Campag 10 speed - eBay smiled on me twice with a Centaur part-carbon rear mech for a tad over £40 and a barely-used Miche Reflex RX5 wheelset for the silly price of £35 (tyres, tubes and all). As for the black 27mm seatpost issue (mentioned in the Road Wanted forum) a Tioga inline one fitted the bill nicely in the end. Currently looking very smart but that white paint job is a bit of a chore to keep clean....

David

*I've owned it for about a year now. :oops:
 
Matt_wood55":230yy4to said:
Come on David, get some pictures up!!

Coming soon....recently invested in a simple but decent digital camera* rather than having to either borrow one from work or use the naff camera on my mobile. Once it's arrived I'll get busy. It'll also make preparing For Sale ads and eBay listings a heck of a lot easier!

David

*Otherwise, it's all done by 20-odd year old Pentax 35mm SLR and waiting for the developing, CD transfer, etc.
 
Re:

Photos (as attachments) are finally up as promised. Excuse the quality, my new cheapie digital camera is no Rolleiflex I'm afraid....

David
 

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Good job David. You have a really nice bike there, and have got a second life out of that frame. I think I will take a leaf out of your book and look for a frame of similar condition and quality and bring it back to life.

Cheers
Matt
 
Matt_wood55":52dqmfww said:
Good job David. You have a really nice bike there, and have got a second life out of that frame. I think I will take a leaf out of your book and look for a frame of similar condition and quality and bring it back to life.

Cheers
Matt

Thanks Matt. "Second life" is bang on the money - its previous owner pictured it on eBay kitted out with MTB handlebars, an all-white track chainset, red BMX pedals and (although not part of the sale), deep section track wheels. Thankfully I saw the frame was destined for better things than yet another "decent road frame turned into bad stereotype of London fixie" project. And let's face it, there are a heck of a lot of said frames out there in need of rescuing....

David
 
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