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More Spring Cleaning

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The gold border between the white and black paint on the rear fender is a nice touch that I haven't seen before. That must have been dropped after the war. The finish on that bike is really nice!
 
Thanks. These earlier Raleighs have some distinctive features on them. I love the gold lining around the white rear fender tip, and the red-colored heron on the back fender looks like a sketch out of an old manuscript. The Number 35 in the 1930s catalogs seems to be a "sporty" version of Sports bike - wingnuts on the front hub and option of a Sturmey rear hub or flip-flop fixed and freewheel rear.

There are changes in the 1940 catalog, that make the bike less like a sporty bike and more like a budget/simple variation of the Sports line. The chain guard and chain case are optional, the wingnuts are gone, and the whole bike looks like a budget sports for wartime service. It seems to me this bike was produced sometime after Germany invaded Poland, but before the war became "serious" in the west and everyone had to switch to wartime production in Britain.

Interestingly, the crank and spindle are both low-profile types that will not accommodate a chain guard or a chain case. I see no signs of clamp marks where a chain guard or chain case would mount.

This bike came out of Boston, Massachusetts, which makes sense given Boston was the home of Raleigh in America in the early years. It had a the Major Taylor style slide stem and drop racer bars on it. An owner back in the day must have converted it to a performance type bike. It probably was very light and sporty compared to a pre-war ballooner of that time. The immediately previous owner, who also is a collector of old Raleighs, converted it back to stock using a pre-war stem and the long-pullback North Road bars. He was able to solder-up a set of double-ended brake cables for it using the original cloth housings.

This is a fun bike to ride, provided that you remember your cuff clips. It's very simple and the Wright's saddle is very cushy with its three springs. It's likely very similar to some of the kinds of bikes ridden in Britain during the Blitz and throughout the second world war.
 
Shot of a 1964 Schwinn Traveler from a recent ride

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And shot of a 1949 Raleigh Clubman project I picked up last weekend.

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Finishing up this 1953 Raleigh Lenton. It has the old style 26 x 1 1/4 Dunlop rims and a 23-inch frame with Reynolds 531 main tubes. It was converted many years ago from a road model to an upright utility type bike with North Road bars and an aluminum Raleigh Industries kickstand. The original celluloid fenders were toast, so I replaced with a nice set of chromed Raleigh fenders. I still have some final fitting and adjustment to do, but it's almost done now.

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If you strip it down to just the frame, the difference does feel substantial. I love picking up a Clubman or Lenton bare frame because it's interesting to see how light they could make steel frames 70+ years ago when they really set themselves to it. But you're right that the difference fades as you add components, wheels, etc. and the total weight increases.

The Lenton benefits a little from the "lightweight" Dunlop endrick steel rims compared to the Sports, but it's also not a huge amount compared to the total bike. I'm sure the celluloid fenders would have been an additional savings, but those tend not to survive well.

You're right that the Lenton frame is more responsive than the Sports (and I notice the bumps a bit more on the Lenton). The 531 is a nice period bonus to have, but I wouldn't decide to buy or not buy a bike based solely on "531 versus not".
 
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