Cleland Range Rider (RR-001 English Cycles) Highpath. 1982

[legrandefromage]

Those seat stays could be just about anything available at the time.

I said on page one.

"On the top of the seatstays "slash cut" very faintly under the paint can be seen "Raleigh".

So Drcarlos's suggestions are based on that.

.

So it could still be any number of 'stays'

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Those seat stays could be just about anything available at the time.

I said on page one.

"On the top of the seatstays "slash cut" very faintly under the paint can be seen "Raleigh".

So Drcarlos's suggestions are based on that.

.

So it could still be any number of 'stays'

I think that the exact origins of the tubes used is trumped by the fact that the asymmetric rear triangle and the reinforced top of the seat tube both signify that the frame-builder, who added the replacement rear triangle, was David Wrath-Sharman.

So this is no 'cut & shut' with the back of another bike being brazed onto the Range-Rider front triangle but a custom built back end fabricated from the wide collection of high quality light-weight tubing that DW-S would have had in stock.

I have no idea why DW-S would have used Raleigh seat-stays when he would have also had Columbus and Reynolds stays to hand. However, you can be sure that he would have ensured that the overall geometry, structural strength and build quality were of the highest order.

It was not unknown for DW-S to make a wide range of improvements when repairing Jeremy Torr made frames. As well as the repair, he would often fine tune their geometry, increase the wheel frame clearances and significantly reinforce them by swapping the single cross-brace with duplex tubes.

 

[REtrouble]

So it could still be any number of 'stays'

I know absolutely nothing about Raleigh cycles, that's why I wrote on page four-

Excuse my total ignorance, is there a period that Raleigh stamped it's name into the top of the seatstays?

To which Drcarlos replied-

Only from 1987 to 1989 in the lightweights. The more basic range lasted longer (up to about 1991 with the k2 range) but the design is different and easy to separate from the higher end lightweight range..

Do you know of other Raleigh's that were stamped on top of the seat-stays?

 

[legrandefromage]

The Raleigh bit is a forged cap or plug, theres no reason to have used a part of a frame as a repair when its far easier to use new tubing. To unbraise a frame is a lot of work.
There is the slim possibility that it could be a 'Clenandiegh' or 'Raland'? Ie a rebuilt raleigh?

 

[legrandefromage]

I'm controversially thinking its not a Cleland , but 'school of Cleland.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

The Raleigh bit is a forged cap or plug, theres no reason to have used a part of a frame as a repair when its far easier to use new tubing. To unbraise a frame is a lot of work.

I know of at least two occasions where David Wrath-Sharman un-brazed Cleland Aventuras and then put them back together again. It always struck me that it would be easier to build a new frame from scratch.

I'm controversially thinking its not a Cleland , but 'school of Cleland.

Technically Cleland Cycles Ltd was not a registered company when RR-01 was built.
However it was Designed by Geoffrey C. Apps whose middle name is Cleland. The 1980 650b Range-Rider was labeled as a 'Geoff Apps' and not a 'Cleland'.

Nowadays the term 'Cleland' is used to cover a whole lineage of bikes influenced by Geoff Apps' ideas and not just those designed by him. For instance the Highpath HiLite has a frame and components designed by D W-S. But it has more in common with Cleland bicycles than with Marin lineage bikes.

 

[Retro Spud]

Great read and glad you guys have such a passion to preserve as many as (collectively) you have

Personally I've been brain washed/ conditioned since day one towards the U.S designs and since I'm unlikely to ever ride a Highpath or the likes I fear I won't truly get what turns you folk on.
They just don't look racey... and more akin to an off road version of a Dutch town bike to plod around the woods on.
I'm sure a few must have been raced at somepoint.. Has anyone got a pic or two of one being hammered as I just can't picture it in my mind.

That said I can and do appreciate the design and heritage factor however you guys have little to fear from me bidding you up on ebay should another surface.

Big respect to you all.

Spud.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

They just don't look racey... and more akin to an off road version of a Dutch town bike to plod around the woods on.
I'm sure a few must have been raced at somepoint.. Has anyone got a pic or two of one being hammered as I just can't picture it in my mind.

Hi Spud, I know exactly what you mean and trying to explain to a 'Mountain Biker' that a Cleland also a good design is like tying to convince a fan of rally cars that a series one Land Rover is also cool in its own way.

Below is a picture of my first off-road bike from 1984:
When I rode this off-road alongside Clelands in the Chilterns, North Downs, Wiltshire etc. I found that the Clelands were not only more comfortable to ride but also faster. So despite initially rejecting the Cleland design for an American style bike I also bought a Cleland. The notion that Clelands can only travel slowly and over easy terrain is based on the speculation of people who have not ridden them or alongside them.

To a Cleland enthusiast there are aesthetically pleasing well proportioned examples and those that don't quite look right, just as is the case with mainstream US MTBs. I guess that its the case that if you love racy & sporty bicycles then you are going to overlook the more functional aesthetics of a Cleland.

As for Clelands being raced, yes that did happen though race events were few and far between back then with only two race events taking place in the UK in 1984 and not many more in 1985.

Here is a discussion with Geoff Apps relating to Clelands competing in the Small Dole event in 1985:
SC: My first experience of a Cleland was in 1982, at the end of the London to Brighton Bike Ride. I saw two guys riding them, and one, who had a similar height and leg length to me, let me try his machine. It was such an easy bike to ride, and I was hugely impressed with the ability to stop without putting a foot down whilst deciding whether to go right or left. The riding position was so comfortable. I asked the guy who lent me his bike how he had handled the ride up Ditchling Beacon. “No problem.” Said he.

GA: It’s a shame you didn’t get to buy one of the originals.

SC: Why didn’t I buy an Aventura back then? I was totally un-impressed with tubing used to create it. My second experience was at the first-ever mountain bike meet in Europe, on the bone dry chalk motocross course at Small Dole, on the South Downs.

GA: I well-remember the Small Dole event.

SC: This meet was organised by Shimano and their rep went mad when not a single mountain bike made it all the way down (all the riders fell off) but all your bikes did; the scumbags wouldn’t give you the prize because you hadn’t fielded six machines.

GA: We rode down to Small Dole from Guildford, it turned-out to be far further than we had anticipated, about 50 miles I think, we were all exhausted. That’s why the Cleland Team on the downhill could only muster five riders; none of us was very keen! Nevertheless, I couldn’t believe our time, it was more than ten seconds inside the winner’s time, and it was only a short run. I don’t think ALL the other riders fell off, but I’m sure that all the other teams had at least one rider crash. No-one was impressed with our performance, they said it was because our team was more experienced. Since when has experience been a disqualification?

Also, here is a head-cam video of me riding a 1988 Highpath made Cleland, overtaking a much fitter rider on a 'race bred' Overbury's Pioneer. The Overbury's rider now owns a Cleland.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/17659045[/vimeo]

 

[REtrouble]

Had a chance to go for a ride today, not a huge difference in front brake performance but to be honest I wasn't expecting much seeing as I'd spent time shaping/balancing up the shoes on the standard back-plate so they were pretty much as good as it was going to get anyway, had I swapped it with a standard backplate & shoes that hadn't been worked on there would have been a notable improvement.

Still worth doing though as the performance should improve slightly as the shoes bed in as opposed to slowly getting worse as the shoes wore unevenly on the old backplate.
The back one needs doing now..... :roll:

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Re:

When the brake shoes bed in the difference will not only be down to the increased contact area between the shoes and the braking surface but also due to an improvement in the self-servo property of the leading shoe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-le ... drum_brake

This self-servo effect is the same basic concept as that found in power assisted brakes but with the extra force coming from the rotation of the wheel and not an external source.

With ordinary non-floating cam single leading shoe drum brakes, the leading shoe initially self-servos and so wears quicker than the trailing shoe. But because the cam is fixed it can not equally divide the input force and the worn leading shoe eventually applies less pressure and has a proportionately reduced self-servo reaction. Eventually, nearly all of the braking is done by the still functioning trailing shoe that does not self-servo at all during forward motion.