mullofkintyre
Retro Newbie
I have just revitalised a re-sprayed 23.5" steel road bike with a frame that almost matches only one of many 1980's light blue Sun Solo bikes among the many hundreds I've found pictures of on the forums and adverts. It has a plate brake bridge, braze-on and holes for left seat stay bottle dynamo with internal wiring, kick stand plate, three brake cable guides on top of the top tube, plastic Raleigh cable guide under the bottom bracket, SR stem and Raleigh bars, was a double Custom crankset with gaps in the big chain ring for the guard to attach, Maillard front hub marked 84, Maillard Normandie freewheel on Quando hub and Alesa rim, and Sachs-Huret gears. The serial number on the bottom bracket is 59249F, which doesn't seem to match a chronology I can find on the web. Under the spray paint there's an indistinct light colour - perhaps a pale green, but it could have been grey or blue. For now I swopped the wheels for a pair from a Raleigh Quasar with a Maillard Helicomatic 6-speed and concave rims because they're in better condition, the pedals and cranks for something that is (and goes) round, and the derailleurs with some much less stiff old Shimanos from a kids bike. The Sun Solo I saw with the plates differed in having hooks for a pump under the down tube though and its brake cable was on the lower right of the top tube.
My questions are, please, ... based on the frame and period and parts what models could my bike have been? And on Sun Solos, why would a kid's racer sold in the UK have been built onto a frame more suited to touring or a continental market? Was there a period around a closure or a strike when plates intended for Raleigh Twentys were used to complete road bike frames? Was the Sun Solo ever used as a paint job used to sell off frames that were hanging around the Worksop Carlton or Sun or other factories that were built earlier or for other models, and if so what were they? What company and period would a serial number 59249F correspond to?
My questions are, please, ... based on the frame and period and parts what models could my bike have been? And on Sun Solos, why would a kid's racer sold in the UK have been built onto a frame more suited to touring or a continental market? Was there a period around a closure or a strike when plates intended for Raleigh Twentys were used to complete road bike frames? Was the Sun Solo ever used as a paint job used to sell off frames that were hanging around the Worksop Carlton or Sun or other factories that were built earlier or for other models, and if so what were they? What company and period would a serial number 59249F correspond to?
