Raleigh Record Sprint - RB karma

I'm bathing in a warm glow right now. Bottle of Scotch at my elbow, just finished my rebuild of my "new" karma Record Sprint, watching iPlayer safe in the knowledge that in almost exactly 50 minutes and 39 seconds, I'll be watching Wiggo cross the line for a historic victory. Surely this warrants a build thread/placeholder until I can actually take some photos... it's dark outside, so no actual pictures yet. But here's one of the bike as very kindly given away by Simplex:



Apart from the fact that I have a soft spot for anything UK Raleigh, this was a bit of an opportunist grab. I found out from my friend who picked it up that it had 105 brakes, and I'll be honest, my first thought was to nick them and put them together with the most-of-a-105-groupset I had left from my bent Dawes, sell it complete and finance some fixie bits for the Record. But once I had it in my hands, I was seduced. Frame just the right size for me, and the potential to have (for the first time ever) a bike with a full, matching groupset. The Record had become a family member.

So the changes from the spec as shown above have been:

Saddle: sent to my Claud Butler and replaced with a nearly-new black B17. My goodness it's comfy...

Chainset: It came with an RSX triple on. Fortuitously, just the same size as the external BB set on my Randonneur. So in the cupboard it went (ready for the inevitable breakage of the external BB) and was replaced by a Biopace double, 52/42, on FC-1050 arms.

Mudguards: Binned. Briefly flirted with having, like, an actual road bike with no mudguards on. Then realised I would get soaked, wet and miserable. New ones fitted, which I happened to have in the shed.

Front (Deore LX, MTB so the arm fouled the mudguards a bit) and rear (Acera) mechs replaced with 105.

Pedals: donated to the chap who picked it up for me and replaced with the new A530s.

Bars, stem, levers: removed and replaced with On-One Midge in gold, ETC front loader and 105 (top exit) levers, wrapped in red Planet X tape.

Once Wiggo comes in I'll take it out for a spin Pictures tomorrow!

Here it is - phone picture, sorry, but you get the idea

I think the front end is a bit short, a longer stem might be required. Rides beautifully though!

A nice work horse. I'm toying with the idea of one of those saddles. Good are they?

This is the first one that I've had. I have always been put off them by the stupid price (which is a recent thing) - I believe they have been putting their prices up and up as the fixie brigade got more into Brooks, partly for the look. I buckled and bought this one because it was second hand (£40 from the CTC forum) and I wanted a black one for this bike. It is very good though.

However, I'm not sure yet if it's a little bit short for me. My other saddle is a Selle An-Atomica "no slot", so a very similar design to the Brooks, just more streamlined and without the deep "wings". And it's a bit longer. However, it might just be the seating position on this bike that's putting me off a bit. We'll see. It's certainly very comfy though.

They are currently on offer at Spa: http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s144p0

However, they are on offer because this has happened:

Spa Cycles said:

Sadly after 35 years Brooks England (Selle Royal) have decided to no longer supply us with their products.

Brooks saddles are now on sale to make room for a larger range of our own better value, higher quality Spa leather saddles (read the reviews) and Gilles Berthoud innovative leather saddles from France.

Click to expand...

Spa's own saddles are these: http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m2b0s81p2667&i=3284 and by all accounts they're very good. In fact I sort of wonder why I bought the Brooks now. No, in fact, I know why: it's because if I don't like it, I can sell it to some halfwit from Shoreditch for more than I paid for it...