A few weeks back I posed the question of whether or not there was ever really fastback seat stay style/fully sloping integral fork crown Raleigh Team Pro's as in the 1974 Raleigh brochure. Up until that point numerous list members all felt confident that they never really existed; just another example of a catalog showing something that was differnet than the real product. Most felt that the Team Pro's all had regular (non-fastback) seat stay/lug fixings and the semi-sloping non-integral fork crown.
Then, e-Richie (Richard Sachs) chimes in and says that there were indeed fastback seat stay/fully sloping fork crown Team pro's and that they were reasonably common in 1973 as that was what all the TI Raleigh riders were using. I asked e-richie if he had any pics to which he replied that there were numerous illustrations of them in some magazines of his which he very graciously loaned to me. Thanks e-Richie!
Sure enough, there they are in mostly full color and some black and white pics, over 17 pictures, some full page shots in just 6 of the magazines. What is new and most interesting is their component specs. About half of them are as I had expected - fully Campagnolo NR - no sign of any SR at that point. The other Team Pro's have the identical paint schemes but have Nervar Star chainsets, Huret Jubilee front and rear derailleurs, Weinmann sidepull brakes, and one bike (Brian Jolly's) even has bar-cons on it! I can't determine the hubs or seatpost from the pics but wonder what make they are?
Nervar Star crankset???? Huret Jubilee derailleur's??? Weinmann sidepull's???? On Team Raleigh's???
Why some of the Team bikes with full Campagnolo and the others with the French components? And why the Nervar Star crankset - I've never seen another high end race bike with these on it?
So, the fastback seatstay/fully sloping fork crown with the same paint scheme as in the 1974 brochure definately exist. Does anyone know if the Team bikes or 1973/74 Team Pro's, pre-Ikleston, had anything unique about them (serial number or frame detail, etc.) to determine if the frameset I have is a Pro or actually a Team Pro as the seller indicated it was?
And I'm still somewhat shocked at the French stuff on the Team bikes at the same time some were full Campagnolo.
Eric Elman
Somers, CT