DYNA-TECH 400

[NiteRyder]

The bonded Raleigh Special Products Division bikes from the early 90s with the Dyna-Tech badge. There is not an awful lot about these bikes on the net. They seem to have a cult following though as I have seen on this site. I discovered them a couple of months ago when I bought an M-Trax 600 Cro-Mo/Titanium MTB and then today I had the chance to buy a road bike. The 400 is the entry level model which has 2055 tubes bonded to aluminium lugs, Cro-Mo fork blades and Shimano Exage 500EX groupset. This machine is heavier than the two 501s I have but it is definitely more zippy to ride. When you pedal hard it accelerates rather rapidly. Looking at the catalogs Raleigh promised a lot with these bikes. They argued that bonding was better than brazing as the tubes were not heated during the process, the heat caused strength loss. They blasted on that, bonding allowed this, bonding did that. Blah, blah, blah. I really wonder, was it that bonding was cheaper than brazing and there was less work involved? Granted you cannot weld Titanium to steel or alloy so this was the easiest way at the time. Anyway, these machines are a part of the 'coming out of the 80s and moving into the 90s' and that is when things started to change in the bike production world. Aluminium frames were coming along and carbon fibre was in the pipeline. The Dyna-Tech is like a protype aircraft that promised everything, never really delivered but looks fantastic in the aero-museum! I actually have a thing for this bicycle. I like the idea behind it and the bold technology that Raleigh dared to give birth to. I striped it down and cleaned it immediately after I got it and I went out for a ten-mile blast that made my gawdamn day! This is a beautiful bike, and while it's definitely not a 531, it's no 18-23 heavy metal monster with go faster stripes. It's a Dyna-Tech 400, Raleigh's forgotten techo baby!


After the service I carried out this week:- Brand new brake/gear cables and repainting of rear triangle as it was slightly rusty. 4 coats of silver, 3 coats of lacquer! Spray painting took 40 hours! New blue bartape. There was a strange rattle in the rear rim and after a thorough examination I found a spoke nipple hiding in there! It must have been there for a long time either from the factory or a broken spoke that was repaired but the nipple went hiding! The front brake levers rattled like hell on rough roads, annoying the shit out of me, so I shot in a little wood glue to stop that and it worked. So here it is my bike of the moment, the Dyna-Tech 400, a beauty!

 

[RubberLegs]

You should have put this in the Readers Road bikes section.

I'm with you on the rattles, annoying as hell, always seems to be the brake cables on my bikes.

Interesting bikes these Dyna-Techs. I recently acquired a couple of frames for peanuts. I thought one of them was just a junky black steel frame with some parts. Well the parts were nearly all Exage 500EX and when I knocked off some of the flaking black paint I found Dyna-Tech decals underneath. Stripped it down and its quite light. I think its maybe a 405 from '94. When I've got all the black paint off I'll post a thread on it.

 

[NiteRyder]

Thank you. Can this post be moved to the appropriate section by an administrator?
Anyway regarding the bikes, they are very cool and I also have an M-Trax 600 MTB with Titanium main tubes. I hear a lot about the Dyna-Techs de-bonding
but some people treat bikes pretty harshly, or may have got an abused bike second-hand and then snapped them. Any machine, if abused and not maintained
properly will give problems. It does say in the Dyna-Tech catalog, on the description page, that some of the higher end models be used on good road surfaces.
I'm sure if you rode any 531, 753 or other brazed frame or even new carbon or welded alloy frame on bad road surfaces day in, day out you would see damage sooner or later. A road bike is best enjoyed on a smooth surface as the jitter gets annoying after awhile and it slows you down. I always cared for my bikes and any noise, rattle, dirt, etc, is immediately dealt with as I'm a bit of a perfectionist to say the least. The brake lever rattle is down to two things, there are metal slabs on the lever itself with a spring, these rattle, then the cable anchor has no plastic bushings where it is fixed to the lever. Like I said a little wood glue, which is safe and non-toxic, plus it can be easily removed once dry, sorted this as the bottle had a nice long tip on it and it was easy to get in to the rather confined space. I would by another Dyna-Tech road bike or MTB, or M-Trax MTB again for the right price provided there was no damage on the frame. I'm sure if a tube de-bonded from a lug, you could try re-bonding with some of the high-tech glues they now have and failing that you could drill the lugs and rivet them. You would have nothing to lose if the frame was in that state anyway, me being the optimist!
See my Blog on this bike. http://silverryder.blogspot.ie/

 

[WILSON3028]

The bonded Raleigh Special Products Division bikes from the early 90s with the Dyna-Tech badge. There is not an awful lot about these bikes on the net. They seem to have a cult following though as I have seen on this site. I discovered them a couple of months ago when I bought an M-Trax 600 Cro-Mo/Titanium MTB and then today I had the chance to buy a road bike. The 400 is the entry level model which has 2055 tubes bonded to aluminium lugs, Cro-Mo fork blades and Shimano Exage 500EX groupset. This machine is heavier than the two 501s I have but it is definitely more zippy to ride. When you pedal hard it accelerates rather rapidly. Looking at the catalogs Raleigh promised a lot with these bikes. They argued that bonding was better than brazing as the tubes were not heated during the process, the heat caused strength loss. They blasted on that, bonding allowed this, bonding did that. Blah, blah, blah. I really wonder, was it that bonding was cheaper than brazing and there was less work involved? Granted you cannot weld Titanium to steel or alloy so this was the easiest way at the time. Anyway, these machines are a part of the 'coming out of the 80s and moving into the 90s' and that is when things started to change in the bike production world. Aluminium frames were coming along and carbon fibre was in the pipeline. The Dyna-Tech is like a protype aircraft that promised everything, never really delivered but looks fantastic in the aero-museum! I actually have a thing for this bicycle. I like the idea behind it and the bold technology that Raleigh dared to give birth to. I striped it down and cleaned it immediately after I got it and I went out for a ten-mile blast that made my gawdamn day! This is a beautiful bike, and while it's definitely not a 531, it's no 18-23 heavy metal monster with go faster stripes. It's a Dyna-Tech 400, Raleigh's forgotten techo baby!


After the service I carried out this week:- Brand new brake/gear cables and repainting of rear triangle as it was slightly rusty. 4 coats of silver, 3 coats of lacquer! Spray painting took 40 hours! New blue bartape. There was a strange rattle in the rear rim and after a thorough examination I found a spoke nipple hiding in there! It must have been there for a long time either from the factory or a broken spoke that was repaired but the nipple went hiding! The front brake levers rattled like hell on rough roads, annoying the shit out of me, so I shot in a little wood glue to stop that and it worked. So here it is my bike of the moment, the Dyna-Tech 400, a beauty!

the french were using this technology in the seventies . Vitus 979 Sean Kellys ride