Converting 1987 Raleigh into winter bike advice

Not Another Hill

Acqured a Raleigh 'Kelloggs Pro Tour' road bike. I think it was built about 1987. Currently has 6 ring cassette on original wheels and hubs, and original 53/44t shimano crank with 'old school' frame mounted shifters.

Anyone know if it's possible to change the crank to Sora compact and 7 speed cassette and keep the original shifters? Want to do this as cheaply as possible. Would a new derailleur work with old shifters?

bill57

Just as long as you don't expect any indexing of the gears - 6 speed aren't going to work with a 7 speed cassette. Anyway, the six speed is not a "cassette", it's a screw on "block" or "freewheel". You won't be able to fit a Sora cassette, probably only one of the 7 speed screw on mountain bike blocks that Shimano make - and the spacing of the ratios on these are probably quite unsuited to road use.

This is going to be a difficult conversion to do cheaply, because to make any of these changes feasible you need a new back wheel with a Shimano cassette hub. Once you've got that, 8,9 or 10 speed, the choice is yours. But not 7 speed, because the cassette hub for that was smaller again.

Redmog

The 7 speed cassette needs spacers when mounted on a new wheel - the axle is longer and the spoke dishing shallower on new wheels to give room for all those extra cogs. The longer axle also means that you'll have to spring the frame apart a bit to get it in, which should be ok on a steel frame.

ride_whenever

The obvious cheap solution is a nice freewheel singlespeed bike. Just bosh on some new brake pads, freewheel, chain and ring. Respace the rearwheel and off you go!

Should cost ~£20 for the pads, ~£15 for the freewheel, ~£10 for a chain and ~£15-£30 for the chainring!