A confession: None of my bikes are ever "done." Heck, I was just swapping pedals on a bike that I've owned for seven years, and last night that same bike got a rear rack (the same rack that I took off last year, which replaced the rack that had been on the bike two years before that). I say they're all works in progress, while my wife would probably say I'm a serial futzer. So I can't call the Raleigh a completed thing, but it's at least reached a point of temporary happiness.
The drivetrain is 40x17 fixed, with a de-toothed old 42-tooth chainring in the outer position as a chainguard. The chopped 42 doesn't give enough coverage over a 40, but it was the biggest sacrificial ring in my stash and it looks better than the black 40 sitting alone on the inner position (where chainline is best).
Just to prove that I'm developing a Wald addiction, the bars are straight outta Kentucky, model #8095 as seen at The 6-Miler. Cork grips for squish and style, brake lever with a lock button (for a parking brake effect), Kool Stop pads on the original Weinmann front centerpull, spare saddle, old saddlebag, ugly BMX pedals, and away we go!
(I didn't route the front brake to the right lever to be extra-British. I just can't find the left lever.)
In a perfect world, I'd have a bigger chainguard, some fenders (probably Wald again), a nicer-looking saddle, less-homely pedals, and fancier luggage (or a front basket -- do I dare say Wald? Jeez, I am such a shill), but as it stands right now, it's a hoot to hop on and just take off. Sure, it looks like I stole it from a pipe-smoking, leather-elbow-patches college professor, but it goes like a retro race rocket... at least until my pudgy legs can't catch up with the 40x17 any more.
Now that I've finally outed my unquenchable thirst for that old-school, all-rigid mountain bike aesthetic of the late 80s/early 90s, I can't help but pick it apart. It's the curse of having been to graduate school in a liberal arts field: You can't just "like" or "dislike" something, you have to analyze (in stomach-churning detail) exactly WHY you "like" or "dislike" that thing.
For retro mountain bikes, I think it's the way that their underlying shape never seems dated (I know, talking about "underlying shape" ignores the twin elephants in the room of hideous 80s paint jobs and 90s anodizing. My blog, my dodge.) Take, for example, this Bruce Gordon Rock 'n' Road Tour EX. Admittedly, it's not really a mountain bike per se, but it's an example of a 26"-wheeled all-rigid bike you can buy in 2009. You don't have to squint much to see the direct lineage back to the brief era of late-80s drop-bar mountain bikes like the '87 Bridgestone MB-1 or the '89 Specialized RockCombo. And even though the Gordon in the photo is probably 10 years old by now (just judging by the vintage of its XT parts), it wouldn't look out of place up against today's Surly Long Haul Trucker (which owes a lot of its genetic code to Bruce Gordon's designs), save for the whole threaded/threadless steerer difference. Similarly, you could fire up the flux capacitor and send an '09 Novara Buzz V back to 1993 without freaking out the trail riders of 16 years ago with your crazy future bike. Heck, they'd probably call you retro for not having a suspension fork!
My more-purist pals on the iBOB list will claim the same sort of timelessness for a lugged road frame, but my eye doesn't see it. I really like the '71 Raleigh International I got from pal Steve, but it obviously comes from another era. Modern "frilly lug" designs (like those from Rivendell) strike me not as proof of the "timelessness" of that aesthetic but as desperate attempts to get back something that's long gone. And modern "Raleigh" (scare-quotes intentional) -- with its retro logos, 70s color palette, and sprinkling of Brooks leather eye-candy -- looks like a room full of marketers trying to add scratch-and-sniff "authenticity" to yet another lineup of generic imports.
I'm also willing to admit that maybe these preferences are just because I bought into the "rad, cool, extreme" marketing when I was an impressionable youth and never gave it up. Hey, my sacred cows tip over just like anyone else's!
A confession: None of my bikes are ever "done." Heck, I was just swapping pedals on a bike that I've owned for seven years, and last night that same bike got a rear rack (the same rack that I took off last year, which replaced the rack that had been on the bike two years before that). I say they're all works in progress, while my wife would probably say I'm a serial futzer. So I can't call the Raleigh a completed thing, but it's at least reached a point of temporary happiness.
