More on the Raleigh Twenty

            I purchased the green 1973 Raleigh Twenty Folder (as shown in my post of March 3^rd ) from Africycle, a charitable organization dedicated to acquiring and transporting doner bicycles to Malawi where they are making a huge impact towards improving the lifestyle of the inhabitants. Some of the donated bicycles which are considered less than ideal for the Malawi environment are offered for sale to the Canadian public. Such was the green Raleigh Twenty.

The folding hinge. Note the dent in front mudguard!

            As can be seen in the pictures in my previous post, after the application of a considerable amount of TLC; underneath all the dust, bat shit and cobwebs emerged a remarkably nice bicycle. Indeed apart from some nasty dents in the mudguards and unsightly patches of rear wheel rim where the chrome had flaked off, it seemed that with a little more effort it would be possible to restore the bike to its original 1973 condition.

            At this time I noticed that Africycle had a second 1973 Raleigh Twenty for sale, so without further ado I returned to their premises in Uxbridge and snapped it up. It was of considerable satisfaction to me that not only had I made two sizeable contributions to their cause but that by way of receipt I had received two desirable pieces of cycling hardware.

            The second (brown) bike, although showing the results of wear and tear on its paintwork was fitted with a pair of excellent chrome mudguards and featured a rear wheel with all its chrome still in place! I therefore swapped these components with those on the green bike and hey presto -just like new! I overhauled the wheeI hubs, bottom bracket, head set, re-lubed the 3-speed hub and fitted some new tyres. At its conclusion I now had an excellent Raleigh Twenty in original 1973 configuration (apart from the tyres) which exceeded my expectations.

                                 The completed green 1973 Raleigh Twenty  







  I now turned my attention to the second bike and have begun a programme of weight saving (the original is no lightweight!). Stage One has replaced the steel stem, handlebars, and seat post with alloy units. The original Brooks saddle and heavy pedals have also been replaced with modern lightweight versions. So far this saved 1.2kg. Details of Stage Two will be forthcoming in due course. This will include alloy rims and new tyres. 

 Brown Raleigh before mods. 

Here is the link for Africycle. It's quite an impressive organisation run by a group of admirable young people.  

http://africycle.org/