Raleigh Grand Prix Suburban Assault Machine

Well, here it is as it sits.

I removed the rear spoke protector as well as the brittle 70s spoke reflectors.

I added a Velo-Orange croissant bag. I put my broken in Brooks B17 honey saddle to good use. I repurposed the ugly chrome bottle cage. I shined it up with Turtle Wax chrome polish and used a Velo-Orange bar mount to mount it to the bars. I am using the cage to carry the stainless steel tea thermos that I also scored from VO.

I then conferred with The Bike Guy, for alternatives to the horrible 70s drop bars and brake levers. he started out by setting me up with some used Bluemels/SKS chromo plastic fenders. We then decided that some old cruiser bars would work, as long as they had a few inches lopped off of each end. I said that I wanted to go with the Tektro inverse brake levers. We looked in some catalogs, but all of the ones that we found had externally routed cables. That was not going to work with the cork grips and the shortened cruiser bars.

The Bike Guy found some internally routed Tektros a few days later in another catalog. He then drilled some holes on either side of the stem to route the brake cables. I have to say, that they make the bike. They are kind of hard to see in the picture above. They look cool, and work very effectively to pull the Dia-Compe centerpulls to achieve maximum braking force.

Today, I swapped out the orginal looking Raleigh racing pedals for some Shimano Deore XT pedals from the 80s. They are lighter, and seem to work great. The bearings seem to have a lot more life in them than the other pedals.

The seating position on this rig is pretty straight up, and the bars allow for a comfortable upright stance as well. I think that I could put 100s of miles on this machine. I am really looking forward to it.