Raleigh Banana Replica

symo

Hi all, my Turbo bike is a Raleigh banana in the gaspipe tubing set. It is fitted with 'Custom' gears 5 speed hub (which i believe are sachs). Is there anyway I can fit a larger cassette spacing?

symo

AUSHTA

Had a look on Sheldons site and he recommends moving up to 6/7 speed cassette by widening the rear frame spacing.

priory

this has been widened to take any wheel hanging up in the garage by taking a piece of wood with a notch roughly cut each end . put it between the seat stays and bang it framewards one side then the other little by little , then do it to the chainstays , gradually approaching the new width of 130mm or 135mm (or something in-between so you are not committed) checking that it all looks symmetrical and good as you go.
I have done this to at least 2 bikes with good results.

the wheels that came with my banana were horrible steel things best got rid of at once. Keeping down-tube levers with friction setting means open choice of cassettes.

I chopped and inverted the drop bars. I have done many miles here and abroad with them but still not sure whether I like them.

symo

Awesome conversion of the gas pipe beasty! I heard Shimano still do friction shifters under Dura-Ace, so may try to source some new ones that way. Going to have to have a go at widening the rear now. Seen another article on widening the rear frame spacing here that looks a little more, how shall I put this; technically accurate.

http://seenonthetrain.blogspot.com/2011 ... frame.html

Enjoy

priory

that does look more professional than mine, but there is no guarantee that the effect of the screw threaded bar will produce a perfectly symmetrical widening of the forks. One would still need to check that as it went along. Secondly the springiness of the steel I think would require the forks to be widened beyond the desired measurement and rechecked several times. That was my impression when I did it.

You are right to value the frame and forks I think. It is a bit heavy, but very strong and stiff. I have used it for cross country riding and everything else. Many miles of spanish back trails.It is at present my son's favourite university bike.

symo

You still have all the crappy sachs shifters fitted?

priory

Yes. And they are crappy, but the strange braze-ons do not fit any other down-tube shifter in my box-of-bits. Since the ones I tried were standard shimano exage and 105 from the early nineties I gave up at that point. Although the shifters look awful they work fine. indexing would be a disadvantage. And I don't think we are going for the latest bling look anyway, so retro-crap that works well has a sort of chic of it's own.

rolf_f

priory wrote:

Yes. And they are crappy, but the strange braze-ons do not fit any other down-tube shifter in my box-of-bits. Since the ones I tried were standard shimano exage and 105 from the early nineties I gave up at that point. Although the shifters look awful they work fine. indexing would be a disadvantage. And I don't think we are going for the latest bling look anyway, so retro-crap that works well has a sort of chic of it's own.

TBH, I think indexing is a bit of a questionable benifit on downtube shifters with 7 or less speed blocks. I have Sachs New Success shifters on my Dawes (seem to be insanely expensive as NOS on ebay) which have friction and index options on the rear - I just leave it on friction.

symo

I think any improvement on the springiness of the sachs units is beneficial. What downtube fittings are compatible?

priory

I really don't know except the exage and 105 were not. They screwed onto the brazed on bit but the base surrounding the screw of the lever would not fit over the lump. If you cannot get to like the ones you have the only thing I can think of is a visit to a cycle jumble or bike shops with frame in hand. or perhaps try converting to bar-end or brake lever shifters, but normally one uses the down-tube screw socket to that. If you clean the levers and do not apply any lube at all to that plastic washer assembly you should be able to tighten it up so that it works reasonably well. ours has been doing it for at least 10years since I acquired it.

priory

it's just occurred to me that you might be able to get a band-on down-tube shifter set

priory

http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php ... 0s108p1519

keef66

That's what I used on my son's Peugeot rescue project! Dremelled off the bosses on the downtube before painting. It already had the 600 front mech so now has matching shifters!

symo

Rear Mech exploded tonight whilst taking off the rear wheel for a replacement tube. Tension spring has gone.
Help anyone?