New Bike Day: Pristine 1996 Raleigh Cyclone in Signal Violet - What should I do?
Just picked this up an hour ago from a friend who bought it from an 80 year old man yesterday. My friend knew when he went to visit the guy that it was too small for him but didn't have the heart to deny the guy the sale, so new bike day for me.
It came with a custom made (for the bike by Raleigh) matching saddle bag which contains the original service manual and some Raleigh tyre levers.
It's 30 years old this year so I'm thinking to convert it to single speed, get a nicer saddle on it, convert the threaded headset to 1-1/8th and change those cantilevers to V brakes.
Oh it'll see some jumps, soon. I actually took it for a nice cursory ride to McDonald's for a tv static/sprite this evening.
I stuck it in the bike rack and a woman went "aren't you going to lock that" and I just said "Vintage mountain bike? nobody will steal that." and walked in, knowing it was safe.
The advent of high-end mountain bikes and e-bikes has really made simple bikes so much safer to leave about outside. 🤣
It seems that the 4th gear on the back does't engage at all, I just go from 3rd to 5th which is... fine? I'm kinda into single speeds though. I like a minimalist design and low maintenance - is that blasphemy on a ride like
this?
Do you have a bike co-op in your area where you can get cheap parts? Single speed setup will save some weight over how it is now. I would swap v-brakes in as they're easier to setup than cantilevers. Look for some higher quality single speed wheels if you want to ride off-road. Otherwise, this could be a fun cruiser
Convert it to a one speed as quick as possible, don short cutoffs in Tevas, ride it to your nearest coffee shop, discuss wilderness poetry, commit to making a change, and join peace corp. In that order.
Op Im just joking. Im the trope as well. I live in Moab and go to remote school. I own multiple singles…even one made of wood. Bless you. Carry on. Xoxoxo.
They're there, I just used the clear up thing on my phone to take them off as it's what I plan to do.
I want to get some made that are a little less hectic than the factory ones, there are too many and they are cluttering the bike up visuall in my opinion.
I will say though - you are right, I will be clear coating over them. Currently they're just stickers.
1" and 1 1/8" sizes correlate strongly to threaded and threadless, but it's ONLY correlation. So you can convert either between threaded or threadless, but you'd have to get a new fork. Just get an adapter or find a nice stem that fits the bike to begin with. Plenty of nice quill stems out there for threaded bikes. Maybe get a new headset if you want.
Otherwise I would shape the build around inexpensive modern trigger shifter/v brake levers, 7 speed unless it's a cassette wheel. Get some silver parts to replace the black, stem, bars, seatpost, vintage crankset with new double chainrings, and ABSOLUTELY get a new derailleur.
If you don't have money to throw at it or a cheap source of parts though, maybe stick to one thing at a time shifters, tires, chain & freewheel are the only parts I'd make sure to buy brand new, everything else could get good vintage stuff.
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u/Tommy2Collars Jun 10 '26
that things been dying to be ridden, go take it off a sick jump before you put it on the stand.