Raleigh Sun Solo

adamg1987

Plan is to rebuild it up, new wheels tyres, bars etc im knew to road bikes so would appreciate any help.
ive been looking at wheels the originals are 27 x 1 1/4 can i change these for more modern wheels such as 700c x 23

few pictures

cyclinggooner

you should be able to fit 700c wheels in no problem.. you may need to change/adjust the brakes to fit the slightly smaller rim size.. might need to get long drop calipers.
the bigger issue will be the rear hub can't see how many sprockets you have on the back or the size of the rear dropout, but most modern 700c wheelsets will have a 130mm hub which will fit 8/9/10 speed cassettes. depending on the age this bike could have 120 or 126mm rear dropouts.
It all comes down to how much you want to spend and what you want the bike to look like?
modern brake/shifters - retro downtube shifters? stick with the same number of gears ( you may be able to use the old hubs on new rims?) or have more sprockets in which case you'll need a new wheelset?

adamg1987

5 speed on the rear will have to check the rear drop outs tommorrow

adamg1987

dropouts are 120mm what does this limit me too wheel wise?

adamg1987

well, ive stripped the bike now, ive decided to put some carbon forks on and convert to a threadless steerer, im going to cold set the frame to 130mm rear dropouts and source a set of 700c wheels

Danny87

Any idea which forks? Stripped a similar old frame myself recently, have cold set the back from 120 to 130mm easy peasy

Oh also measure the brake drop before you replace the brakes may find the drop to be like 60-70mm on these oldies where as modern frames/brakes are like 50mm-ish.

adamg1987

Hi Danny, thanks for your interest im watching a few forks on ebay at the moment just need to research what will be suitable and then research new stem and headset then go from there really.

ed_j

adamg1987 wrote:

Hi Danny, thanks for your interest im watching a few forks on ebay at the moment just need to research what will be suitable and then research new stem and headset then go from there really.

Forks come in 2 sizes, 1 inch and 1 1/8 inch. Make sure the forks you're watching are 1 inch.

defycomp2

Wow! My mind is cast back to 1981 when I had one of these for a couple of years before getting a Raleigh Rapide with 531 tubing and my first hit of Campag. Out in all weathers, paper round before and after school, cycle to/from school, a quick 10 or 25 miles in the evening and a couple of 50's at the weekend. All wearing jeans, trainers and a snorkel parka with not a drinks bottle or energy gel in sight. Ahh..the joy of youth.

adamg1987

Ye been watching a few 1" forks but seems to be a bit thin on the ground at the moment

drlodge

Cold setting the rear drop outs from 120 to 130 is quite a change, 5mm each side. You'll need to realign the drop outs as well, since they will no longer be parallel after cold setting the stays. However I would expect the steel to be quite flexible, unlike 753 stays! Another option is to cold set to 126mm and find some NOS hubs which are 7 speed.

ed_j

drlodge wrote:

Cold setting the rear drop outs from 120 to 130 is quite a change, 5mm each side. You'll need to realign the drop outs as well, since they will no longer be parallel after cold setting the stays. However I would expect the steel to be quite flexible, unlike 753 stays! Another option is to cold set to 126mm and find some NOS hubs which are 7 speed.

I'd do this too. Ebay a sachs-maillard rear hub, seven speed screw on freewheel, build it onto an open pro job done. Front wheel can be anything...

RideOnTime

secretsam

Here's some advice for you (and I mean this in good faith): don't spend any real money on this, it was a cheap bike in its day. There's an insane fixation on old steel bikes at the moment and everyone seems to assume that steel = good, regardless - but there was some fairly poor quality steel back then, so don't be fooled. This was the equivalent of what would be a £250-£300 bike these days; except that a £300 bike now would actually be a much better bike (indexed gears, brakes that work, etc)

Sorry to be all Mr Miserable but that's the way it is, in my eyes