Raleigh Randonneur 708 1997

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

100mm from memory. Black Sakae SR.

 

[winjohn]

Ha ha when I saw that question I thought " Hmmm I think I know a bloke who knows."

T cut and polished up my Royal yesterday. I'm not sure Mrs Winjohn agrees with our new table decoration though.

 

[gilmo789]

Doea anyone know what size stem the 22.5 inch frame came with?

Mine is a 22.5. The stem it came with was 105mm. I think it was original - Sakae stuff.
I bought it second hand though and have since changed it

 

[peetee]

Hate to put a damper on this thread (I thought my 708 was my forever bike) but I’ve now heard of a second 708 frame cracking. https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=163522
In my experience, that’s unusual for Reynolds frames.
Mine went on the down tube and chainstay. The other bike on the top tube.
So I’d say, enjoy your bikes but check them regularly. That said, don’t worry too much. They are steel and well engineered so failures are unlikely to be catastrophic.

 

[gilmo789]

No link to me but here's a 708 in manchester. respray and mismatched parts but decent price

 

[David708]

Hi, I am thinking of adding a randonneur type front rack to my Raleigh Randonneur but wonder want the handling will be like? Geometry is 72 degrees parallel for seat and head tube angles, so relatively laid back. With a fork offset of 54, trail is not massively low, so I’m hoping as ok with a rando bag? I have toured extensively with low riders on the front, so I guess not much difference to handling, albeit with the weight higher up? Would like to run this bike with a Carradice saddle bag on the rear and rando bag up front for light weight touring.

 

[gilmo789]

It will be fine for that. I use lowriders w/ rando bag and a tent strapped under the seat. Works fine.
Works fine with just the bag. Works great at everything!
I'm not sure the low trail thing is as important as the marketing department at Rene Herse would have us believe

 

[Wingsonmyheels]

Comment below this post blogpost refers to another frame fracture

https://midlifecycling.blogspot.com/2016/11/what-happened-to-708.html?m=1

 

[gilmo789]

the important part of that comment is this
".... i like the bike so much i had the frame repaired and its still going strong. Thanks for the post..."

 

[Mark Manley]

Hi, I am thinking of adding a randonneur type front rack to my Raleigh Randonneur but wonder want the handling will be like? Geometry is 72 degrees parallel for seat and head tube angles, so relatively laid back. With a fork offset of 54, trail is not massively low, so I’m hoping as ok with a rando bag? I have toured extensively with low riders on the front, so I guess not much difference to handling, albeit with the weight higher up? Would like to run this bike with a Carradice saddle bag on the rear and rando bag up front for light weight touring.

Here is mine, it is a 1997 Royal 708 under there loaded up for a tour of Northern France last year and it handled fine.