Help needed - is this a Raleigh Road Ace?

Hi,
Over Christmas I met up with an old friend who I used to go road cycling with in the late 80s (he now lives abroad) and from the depths of his dad's garage I discovered this.

It used to be my uncle's main road bike, and he sold it to my friend in the late 80s. It used to be light blue and have a full Shimano 600AX groupset on it, until my friend got hold of it. He had it sprayed black by a local company, then highlighted the lugs with an awful bright green. He then replaced parts of the 600AX groupset with modern (at the time) Shimano 600 components. Digging through the garage I found the orginal chainset and pedals, along with the original brake levers.

I'm pretty sure this was an 83 or 84 Raleigh Road Ace - does anybody know, or even better have access to the catalogue?

Still missing from the bike is the stem (I think it has a hidden bolt), the areo gear levers (they sat on the top of the down tube), the front mech and the saddle - I think the saddle was a light blue colour - does any body know?

The wheels with it weren't original, as it came with tubs, but my uncle bought a second pair at the same time to use tyres and tubes, and these are the wheels on the bike now.

What do I do with it? Do I have it repsrayed blue and try to replace the missing 600AX components, or do I restore it as it is with the 600 components? If I had it resprayed, do you know where I can find the Raleigh frame stickers?

Any advice would be appreciated.....

Looks like an '84:

http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/R ... l84_03.jpg

from:

http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/

Yep, that's the one - just realised I forgot to mention the 600AX centre pull brakes are absent, still hidden in that garage somewhere.

Thanks for the link, much appreciated.

Still can't decide what to do with the bike though....

Restoration I'd say with original 600AX much more fun and rewarding imo. Lloyds will supply the decals -

http://www.hlloydcycles.com/index.htm
http://www.hlloydcycles.com/ListFeb09html.htm

Personally, I think it's got the makings of a lovely fixed gear...

If it were mine, I'd be looking at a nice single-colour respray (pearl white? metallic light blue?) and a tout MAVIC road-fixed build, period correctness be damned.

My size too, if you're ever looking to sell...

aero levers:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Shimano-600-8-Spe ... 539wt_1165

Thats an 84 due to the shot in rear stays. As far as I know no one has the stickers for this, and I would be cautious with stickers as they are often a poor interpretation of the originals, unless someone can demonsrate otherwise - I am considering making my own as I have a number of these bikes including an exceptional reference one. Those levers are not correct by the way, the bike should be all 600AX with Dura Ace Ax bars - please don't make this a fixie, unless its a period / spec correct one!

The '85 also had shot-in stays:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54329998@N ... otostream/

but the '84 has an aero gear lever mount.


The full spec is in the catalogue:

http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/R ... l84_05.jpg

yep, gran course (very nice too) also had shot in rear stay - but the giveaway is the top mount or te 600AX levers.

The only thing that caught me out between the two years 83/84 o the aero model was the change from Clement Ritmos to Vittoria tubs..

If anyone has any pictures o a decent restoration that gets the stickers / polar blue paint right I'd be very interested to see. The best atermarket reynolds tubing stickers are a far cry from the originals and it worries me when sending frames to be 'restored' to original spec.

If you are interested in a decent fixie, I'd be interested in trading my restored Peugeot Perthus 753r frame, superlight with lots of chrome.

Thanks for the interest, but haven't yet been bitten by the "fixie" bug (can't see the point......... ).

Going to look into getting it resprayed locally. Money's limited, so if that's too much, I may look to sell in the future.