<snip>
> One aspect of the Raleigh Professional which has always intrigued me is
> that it, from my own experience, appears to have been the world's
> greatest garage queen in cycledom. Almost all of the examples on eBay
> are in amazing, often pristine shape, even the frames which have long
> since been stripped of their components.> Peter Kohler
> Washington DC USA
>
My best guess is that many of the garage queen Pros and Paramounts were hung on the peg when their tubulars got their first flat and the process for fixing them (back then one was generally encouraged to repair one's own tubulars with messy glue, patch kit, needle and thread) or the cost of an appropriately top-line replacement was revealed to their stunned new owners. If they'd been clincher equipped and the flat repair was a simple matter to fix it might've seen people keep riding them longer.
Sew-ups and casual riders are a bad mix!
Kurt Sperry
Bellingham, Washington USA