Mark Manley
Raleigh Fan
A friend told me on Saturday evening that he had been clearing a barn out for a neighbour and had found an old bicycle that he was told to get rid of and thought that I might like, oh no another piece of crap I don't need was my first thought before he mentioned it might be a Carlton which piqued my interest.
We walked up the road to collect it yes it was a Carlton Ten and pushed it back to his place where to our surprise the tyres held air and with generous quantities of WD40 most of the moving parts seemed to move, I could not take it then but walked the three miles over there on Sunday morning and rode it home, the rusty rims almost destroying what was left of the brake blocks in the process but they did have some bite.
It was a bit of a mess but the Bluemels mudguards were pretty good and the frame was not too bad so Sunday afternoon I pulled it apart to see what was usable, which turned out to be the frameset, mudguards, brakes and a few other bits and pieces.
I was fairly certain most of the nessessary parts were here somewhere and after fitting a good headset I had with new bearing I took the wheels off of another bike and found everything needed around the place, mostly Sakae Ringyo except the original seatpost for the time being, I have just ordered an SR on Ebay for it. It should have drops but someone had changed them for pullbacks at some point and I am not about to change them back, I just changed the rather weight stainless ones for alloy SR.
Somethings such as the brake levers will need changing in the future and some new mudguard stays would be nice, I have checked and Lloyds do a decal set for this bike so perhaps a respray in the future with a move back to derailleur as well, but for now it is quite rideable and a satisfying days work.
The annoying thing about those pullback handlebars I discovered today is that it is rather difficult to lean the bike up against a wall and have it stay there, if it bugs me too much they might have to go in favour of a pair of riser bars I have. I had thought that the change to alloy components might have brought the weight down but the SA drum brake hubs must have made up for the difference as it still weighs in at 13.5KG.
We walked up the road to collect it yes it was a Carlton Ten and pushed it back to his place where to our surprise the tyres held air and with generous quantities of WD40 most of the moving parts seemed to move, I could not take it then but walked the three miles over there on Sunday morning and rode it home, the rusty rims almost destroying what was left of the brake blocks in the process but they did have some bite.
It was a bit of a mess but the Bluemels mudguards were pretty good and the frame was not too bad so Sunday afternoon I pulled it apart to see what was usable, which turned out to be the frameset, mudguards, brakes and a few other bits and pieces.
I was fairly certain most of the nessessary parts were here somewhere and after fitting a good headset I had with new bearing I took the wheels off of another bike and found everything needed around the place, mostly Sakae Ringyo except the original seatpost for the time being, I have just ordered an SR on Ebay for it. It should have drops but someone had changed them for pullbacks at some point and I am not about to change them back, I just changed the rather weight stainless ones for alloy SR.
Somethings such as the brake levers will need changing in the future and some new mudguard stays would be nice, I have checked and Lloyds do a decal set for this bike so perhaps a respray in the future with a move back to derailleur as well, but for now it is quite rideable and a satisfying days work.
The annoying thing about those pullback handlebars I discovered today is that it is rather difficult to lean the bike up against a wall and have it stay there, if it bugs me too much they might have to go in favour of a pair of riser bars I have. I had thought that the change to alloy components might have brought the weight down but the SA drum brake hubs must have made up for the difference as it still weighs in at 13.5KG.
