I also own a SB 753 bike in team colours but i do not think these things were sold as framesets exclusively, at least not in Germany around 1980. I have a 1980 german Raleigh Catalogue which offers the complete bike with a full SR groupset even showing the usual spec sheet. You can look at the catalogue at hte file section with the Yahoo Team Pro group. So i am quite sure these machines were available complete at least at some time in some countries. Don't know about the rest of the world though. I got my bike from a LBS for really no money and it was one of the best deals I ever made. It really pays out to visit older bike stores frequently and check for old stuff, as some of our stores take the old bikes when somebody buys an nes one andt wants to get rid of his old ride. Most of the time the bike stores do not want to make any money with those transactiens and are glad to get them out of the way. Regards
Michael Schmid Oberammergau Germany Tel.: +49 8821 798790 Fax.:+49 8821 798791 mail: schmid@zunterer.com http://www.zunterer.com
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] Im Auftrag von P.C. Kohler Gesendet: Mittwoch, 28. Januar 2009 02:40 An: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Betreff: Re: [CR] Raleigh TI 753 53CM (Ed Granger)
If you want (as you should) a TI Raleigh 753 Team frame, it's not the colour or the decals that make it so. Raleigh, like Bianchi, put their team livery on everything. There was even an excreable "Team Record", the 2030 tube Raleigh base $89 10-speed, in team colours.
What makes a real Raleigh Team bike is the SB serial number denoting a SBDU Ilkeston-built frame. They made frame in 531 and 753 (these were only available as framesets) and they have nothing in common with the Worksop
W-prefixed frames.
Ilkeston-built frames were built by about four framebuilders in true bespoke fashion and from 1974 to 1986 they turned out fewer than 10,000 total frames... Worksop made more Internationals in a single year in the mid 70s. I have two SB frames and don't own two better built or finished bicycles. Nor can imagine wanting anything better. But that's just my personal opinion. Add to this the association with the all-conquering TI Raleigh Team, the winningest team of the late classic era and yep, these are pretty desirable!
But they can be had and quite reasonably, too. My recently acquired SB5708 (1984) cost me 170 pounds on eBay (UK) in October. SB frames are on eBay
(UK) quite frequently actually although the classic team liveried frames are not as common. Anyway, worth waiting for the "real thing" methinks. These are superb real race proven machines in the best British framemaking tradition. Heck, these were even built in the old Rolls-Royce shops!
Peter Kohler moderator of the Yahoo Group "Raleigh Team Pros" Washington DC USA