Denton Cycles Commissioned 1985 Raleigh SBDU 753 Randonneur

I've finished building 3 bikes this year...

Joe Waugh 653 viewtopic.php?f=23&t=296101
Raleigh SBDU 531 Pro Super viewtopic.php?f=23&t=291826
Raleigh Team Pro 753 viewtopic.php?f=23&t=281093

and now I have another to play with. I bought this frame from another forum member about a month ago. I like it as it is an SBDU frame and also connected to my old shop of Denton Cycles in Newcastle. This is SB7657



I wasn't sure at the time if it was 531 or 753 although it was badged as 753. The story was that it was a 753 frame ordered by Dentons in 1985. Dentons weren't a Raleigh dealer so I asked the TI Raleigh group and Mike Mullet supplied the following;

"I am casting my mind back some 40 years so some dates are a little hazy. In the mid 70’s I was a senior coach and on the coaching committee of the BCF as it was then, now British Cycling. One of my remits was to watch 1st cat riders for international selection. Colin was on a coaching course I was running at Lilleshall and I had noticed him in the racing results and was impressed with him on the course. We were looking for riders for an England team for the Milk Race, and I recommended Colin and he was duly selected. Can’t remember the exact year. Over the next few years I was a team official on international races in which Colin rode. He was the proprietor of Denton’s during this time. In the late 70’s I became Workshop Manager at SBDU Ilkeston, and suddenly found I had lots of friends in the cycling world! Colin came to visit me at Ilkeston and asked if I could build a bespoke frame for him even though Dentons were not Raleigh dealers. GOD (Gerald O’Donovan) agreed and left it to me. A couple more bespoke frames were built to Colins spec which could well be one of the frames you have acquired.
Mike"

So that explains how it came about. The double eyes on the front and rear dropouts and the 2 bosses at the top of the inside of the seat stays match with the description in the 1986 Raleigh Ilkeston catalogue.



The weight of the frame pointed to it being 531 as it was a little over 2000 grms but it did have 5 inches of stuck seatpin still in the frame.



Lots of cutting and drilling and patience worked to get the pin out. On the scales it weighed in at...



So definitely 753.

Lots of people get hung up on the size of 753 seatpins. There have been several variants of 753 over the years that it was in production. Not every frame and seatpin is perfect. This frame should be 27.2 as it is the later imperial 753. My Campagnolo Record seatpin which is stamped as 27.2 actually measures at everything from 27.12 to 27.2 depending on where you put the digital vernier. After a quick ream to clean the seat tube, the 27.2 pin fitted perfectly.



After a good clean up, it doesn't look too bad in it's black enamel paint.




I've built the other 3 bikes and stuck to full matching period groupsets. With this, I'm thinking of a change. I'm going to try and build a really good randonneur/audax bike. So as light as possible but with parts that are as durable as possible.

Starting with a 2Nut Chris King headset and also thinking about Mavic 501 hubs. The rest is still a mystery, especially bottom bracket and gearing. And the biggest mystery is where I am going to get all the money from to build a fourth bike!

Re:

Lovely. Lucky boy!

Can't wait to see it up and running.