1981 Raleigh Twenty folder - BMXified (ish)

Re: 1981 Raleigh Twenty folder - BMXified!

It's brill I love it. I may just have to do the sameish, but I'm thinking a pair of small drop bars.
 
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I finally remembered to take a photo of the bike in it's current form this morning, although the bright sun has rather obscured the new bits (soz for the filth, but it's getting a lot of use!):



A few things have changed since the previous photos.. the seat clamp is different, the stem and handlebars are now BMX-style, and the rear cog is now 13 tooth. oh, and the Charge Spoon seat is on a different bike, so this now has some old Carrera thingy.

The seat clamp was changed because the original was half-swallowing the shim, and also looked like it was digging into the post. I'm not quite sold on the new one, though. The new stem and handlebar mean that steering is a lot more sturdy, and I don't feel like I'm riding something that shouldn't be allowed on the road.

With 20" wheels, the 48/13 gears have roughly the same gear ratio as 48/18 on a big boy's bike. It still seems to be pretty quick from standstill, but now I can make a good go of keeping the lead and also overtaking people! :D

I had a weird experience on the train last week.. I'm used to old dude's asking about the bike (one guy was pondering putting mags on a Moulton - now THAT is sacrilege!), but this time a guy in his twenties asked if he could take photos of it. That's just odd! :shock:

Here's some good links for info on modifying R20s:
http://raleightwenty.webs.com/
http://hadland.wordpress.com/2012/06/24 ... wenty-r20/
http://sheldonbrown.com/org//raleigh-twenty.html
http://workingoncycles.blogspot.co.uk/s ... %20project
 
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I'm kind of curious to see what your bike looks like with a human actually riding it. Curious mix of freaky and Badass!

Any chance of an action shot?
 
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Bats":h3bjcssg said:
No, but you will die when those cheapo fake Tuffs snap. As for ancient styling... You know you're on retrobike, right? I mean it says so and everything. On the screen.

Either way, this isn't a styling improvement, it sort of looks like a bunch of random bits that weren't meant to go on the same kind of bikes. Which it is.

It reminds me of those people who buy those rubbish PT Cruisers and glue loads of tacky fake chrome and fake porthole exhausts all over it.

Folding bike version of pengy.

500px-Anchorman-well-that-escalated-quickly.jpg
 
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spatuluk":37w058px said:
They're not knockoffs, they're nos acorns. Third best mags, bitd (apparently). Plus I'm not gonna be doing tricks or trying to race it, so they should be fine.

If they're genuine old Acorns you'll have a job breaking them - BITD we used to endo and turn the bars 90 degrees at the same time just to get the front wheel to fold - never ever snapped one
Pretty sure their ads for Z rims even showed a badly buckled rear wheel to ilustrate how flexible they were.
OGKs on the other hand...
 
Re: 1981 Raleigh Twenty folder - BMXified!

Here's a slightly better photo. I'm afraid my phone is not great at ze photos:

I dunno how I'd get an action shot.. the only person who could help would be my wife, and she hates my bikes! I expect I look more freaky than badass while riding it.. a 40 year old man riding what looks like the crappest BMX ever made. Mid-life crisis alert!! :roll:
 
Re: 1981 Raleigh Twenty folder - BMXified!

Oh my God - what have I stumbled into? Truth is, I find myself strangely attracted...
 
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