Re: [CR]Boston CL Raleigh Pro now trashing Raleighs

(Example: Component Manufacturers:Chater-Lea)

Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2008 16:14:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]Boston CL Raleigh Pro now trashing Raleighs

I have a number of raleigh internationals in my garage. Brian Baylis graciously helped me to restore 3 of them, and I have 1970, 1971, and 1974 instances of these frames. I want to make 2 points about them:

(a) In the early 1970's, the raleigh international was arguably the #2 cheapest 'almost all campy' bike available. The only bike cheaper (if memory serves me) was the Windsor Pro, and only by a few buck$. Many people compare a $325 bike (1972, international) with a bike costing $100 more and say that the workmanship comes up short. That's because you're comparing apples to oranges. The correct comparison would be a

Carlton Flyer vs :

Colnago Super Schwinn Paramount Gios Torino

etc., to have a fair comparison.

(b) Among my raleigh international(s), finishes definitely went down hill by 1974. My 1974 bikes have orange-peel finishes on the chromed lugs, a decidedly silly thing to do (why take shortcuts on the main focal / selling points of these bikes?), and brazing blobs on the forks. The 1970 and 1971 bikes I own had fully polished lugs, but little if any clean-up on the nervex stamped lugs (unlike a schwinn paramount or similar bike.)

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA