'86 Raleigh Competition - advice welcome!

That could be very nice with just some elbow grease and quite a bargain to boot. Nice one.

The Raleigh would have been the better bike with its 501sl (sl=super light) frame and 105 components from the factory. However the Pug is not far behind it looks like it has 501 forks too which is a bonus as often 501 frames just have hi-ten forks.

I'm sorry for my tardiness with the stem. Pretty sure it is I'm a box in the shed, not 100% sure on bars though. I will look tomorrow for sure!

Finally checked! The stem I have is an SR Custom in 80mm flavour, however the wedge is missing....

I'm proving to be not much help to you aren't I

Well, things progress... I've got a Shimano 105 groupset on the way from Spain for the Raleigh, purchased from Caneco on here.

And I collected the Peugeot from North Yorkshire yesterday. Lovely drive to get there. It seems to be pretty sound with a few rust spots on the frame - which are fairly visible close up, due to it being white.

The most urgent things it needs are to fix a puncture on the back wheel - presumably a new inner tube is the best way to go there? - and new brake blocks.

Does anyone have any advice about new brake blocks? With an obviously ruthless approach to cost/benefit...

And then the handlebars will need re-taping and need new plugs to put in the end. Here is where I start to admit what a novice I am. Is this easy to do? I genuinely have no idea.

Re:

Well it turns out I got the Peugeot on the road first... the front derailleur was stuck in one gear and when I tried to fix that it turned out it had been bodged. So I acquired an array of parts back in January and it's sat unused while I avoided having to learn how to do things that made me nervous about getting wrong, like tape handlebars.

So last month I thought, I can spend the summer failing to get round to fixing this bike, or actually riding it. So I got Popup Bikes near Manchester Victoria station to fix the bits I'd required and christened the bike on a 71-mile Audax circuit around the Peak District last week.

It now has white Cinelli bar tape and orange Jagwire brake cables (figured I could get away with that due to the orange frame decal) and I'd got a decent mini-groupset cheap off eBay so that brakes and front derailleur are Shimano 600, the front rim is Mavic MA-190 and the back is Rigida Chrina - everything else is original spec, the seatpost (and I think the cranks and chainset) is Stronglight, the stem and handlebars are Atax, the hubs are Maillard, and the back derailleur is an indexed Rival Aris 6-speed, which is made by Sachs Huret.

I did have a Shimano 600 rear mech as well and had asked them to fit that, but it turns out I needed a compatible gear lever, and the indexed one for the Sachs gears wasn't right.

Anyway, here are some photos. I've got a white Selle Italia saddle to replace the old one just as soon as I can un-seize the nut holding the old one on to the seat post.





Most crucially, for a bloke used to a heavy old Peugeot 3-speed or an equally heavy B'Twin Hybrid, it is incredibly light and incredibly fast. Now I just need to get used to riding with drop handlebars...

(the handlebars were adjusted like that as a temporary fix as the stem was too low but we were already out on the road and couldn't get that to shift at that point...)

This thread is nice reading and its good to see another one bitten by the retro bug.
You sound like you've 'started' off with a couple of nice rides. keep updating and let us know how it keeps going.
Welcome to the darkside, looks like you'll need a bigger shed

Jamie

Cheers! Oddly enough I have a slightly annoyed friend who, several months ago, offered me the use of her garage for one or two of my bikes. She ended up with five in there for quite a while - I've only just reduced that to four...