Raliegh Elan.....

2»

Comments

  • wgwarburton
    wgwarburton Posts: 1,863
    Hi,
    Going against the flow a bit, I reckon that would make a nice fixie. I wouldn't cut the frame up or respray it: it looks tidy enough. Just remove the shifters & mechs, replace the chainrings with a single and the freewheel with a track sprocket and redish the wheel. More complicated if it has a freehub, in which case you'd need a new hub (or, for simplicity, a second rear wheel).
    The frame's only 501, not anything particularly special, but there's no reason to ruin it.
    Personally, I wouldn't bother with single-speed- it's no more fun than gears but harder work, so you get the worst of both worlds.... and you can never escape the sneaking suspicion that you may be a wuss...

    Cheers,
    W.
  • Wallace1492
    Wallace1492 Posts: 3,707
    welkman wrote:
    Diid you find it a pain to get the chain taught without the tensioner? Just thought there would be enough movment in the drop out to not need one.

    Just went down the tensioner route.

    WGW, doing it SS IS great fun. Yes, harder, far harder, but it helps build muscle and fitness.

    Last night on a hard MTB climb, the local chap advises that in 20 years he had only seen 1 other person make it up, and that person was in the Marines.... happy to report that after last night he has now seen 2 people do the climb! 8)
    "Encyclopaedia is a fetish for very small bicycles"
  • welkman
    welkman Posts: 396
    I have a set of pro race wheels for the bike as soon as I can upgrade the ones on my Ribble with something a bit better. That means that the only options for me are SS, or keep it as is.

    W
  • welkman
    welkman Posts: 396
    This is how it ended up, has done a few hundred miles now and inspired my other purchase.

    6983059342_f7a39602f5.jpg
    IMG_0139 by welkman001, on Flickr
  • mudcow007
    mudcow007 Posts: 3,861
    im in the same situation at the moment, but with an older bike (1963)

    frame an forks are basically covered in surface rust so looks scabby, but i feel bad sand blasting it

    im just goign to respray mine an bring it back to its former spec. Mine came with a fixed gear an 5 speed cassette on the other side!
    Keeping it classy since '83
  • flimflam_machine
    flimflam_machine Posts: 263
    welkman, are those cane creek brake levers (or possibly tektros)? What do you reckon of them, did they beef up the braking much?
  • welkman
    welkman Posts: 396
    Yep they are cane creek, super comfy and just as good as my 105 levers on the posh bike. I think they look a bit silly on the old bike so I may swap them onto my jake as the sora brifters have died! Not sure how much difference the levers make compared to new pads and a good service though?
  • flimflam_machine
    flimflam_machine Posts: 263
    welkman wrote:
    Yep they are cane creek, super comfy and just as good as my 105 levers on the posh bike. I think they look a bit silly on the old bike so I may swap them onto my jake as the sora brifters have died! Not sure how much difference the levers make compared to new pads and a good service though?

    Sheldon reckons that aero levers are one of the best upgrades that you can make to old road brakes that had levers with external cable routing (like these), especially when braking from the hoods. But from your original pictures it looks like you already had aero-levers so the new ones probably didn't add that much. Modern brake blocks certainly are much better though!
  • craker
    craker Posts: 1,739
    Oooh me too :-)

    Europa.JPG

    1980-ish Raleigh Europa found in the local rubbish dump. As a 14 speed it was an acceptable back-up bike, as a single speed it's great fun and the rain has held off long enough for me to commute to work on it today.

    I've resprayed the forks but I don't want to lose the decals and the banding on the frame - so its going to stay scruffy until I work out how best to restore it. The only original things left are the frame and the forks.

Categories