Higher-end Raleigh Tourers; Royal and Randonneur

[wafter]

Thanks all - some lovely old metal being posted in this thread

Tbh this format of bike currently feels like "home" - I've come a long way around the houses in the past 20 years, working through all the frame materials with various goals but I think old, unpretentious practical steel is where I ultimately want to be.

Granted I know there's a world of difference between my 18-month-old 725 CdF and a 30-year old 531 Raleigh, but (even with coronatax) some of the less-well-known tourers seem like excellent value for money!

Randonneur were really good tourers. This is my old 1994 708 model. I sold it six years ago for around £250 to a bloke who used it to tour all around Europe and was devastated when it was stolen in Switzerland.

I'm not an expert on Reynolds tubing but I noticed no difference between 708 and 531 from a riding pov. It was not noticeably heavier.

The bottom pic is the bike as I bought it.

In hindsight I really wish I had not sold it.

In comparison my earlier Royal was a pretty average bike.
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Thanks and yes; I can see why you might be kicking yourself for selling that as it looks fantastic; especially after you'd sorted it out and binned those gash bars. What are the replacement bars please - I'm guessing they're not standard-spec items? Whatever they are I love the shape!

That's interesting you mention the ride in comparison to the Royal - can you put your finger on what made it feel so different?

Thanks for the link - as you say very informative! I'd like to know more about the 708; there appears to be very little about it on the net. The Reynolds wiki page suggests that that it would be used with 753 chainstays; adding weight to the suggestion that it might be the same composition and heat-treatment state as 753; just differentiated by its "unconventional" internal profile... something I still can't really get my head around since (for the same overall mass of material and OD) I'd have expected simply increasing wall thinkness of a simple round section to give the best stiffness.

I'm also a bit skeptical of this material on account of its short lifespan (maybe just replaced by the more forgiving 725 - not sure of timescale..?). I've read the tales of 753's heat sensitivity and have also read it suggested that 708's profile might make this already finnicky alloy even more problematic to braze due to uneven heat distribution / transfer.

I also notice that in the linked thread one chap had a pretty catastrophic frame failure; which doesn't bode well - although it seemed his frame / its constituent tubes were a bit of an unknown quantity..

I restored a Royal last year, it rode beautifully, shame it was too big for me as I would have kept it.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/raleigh-royal-tourer-rebuild.262163/

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Thanks - shame about the lack of drops but it looks lovely all the same!

I see I'd commented on that thread but evidently failed to reach the end. As usual looks like you did a cracking job

The earlier model with 27 inch wheels will have chrome rims. Stopping in the wet will be interesting to say the least.

Thanks; although I think some at least had alloy from what I've seen. I appreciate the thought - my Routier has steel rims and the brackes are certainly crap in the dry and basically useless in the wet.. so I'd not be entertaining the idea of anything similar

I bought a Royal new, a late one but badged and it has served me superbly as daily transport, a tourer, trailer towing and general all purpose machine. I reckon I've done around 15/18k miles do far. Lovely bike and currently in pieces for a repaint and gradually upgrading the parts again. Highly recommended in my opinion.

Thanks - you sound like a very happy customer

Really I want it for exactly the purposes you describe. As usual I've shot myself in the foot with the CdF somewhat; in that on paper it makes an excellent utility bike, however on account of its value and my prissyness I never, ever leave it locked up anywhere which severely diminishes its practicality. The Routier is the current shopping hack (or will be when I get back to Oxford - it's done all of about 15 miles in the last year as round here all the larger shops are further way than I'm comfortable riding on it with its limited gearing and dodgy brakes.

As such I think a tidy-but-not-mint tourer would fit nicely in the gap - capable enough to be practical without me worrying too much about leaving it outside the shops for half an hour. The Routier would still have a place as a pub bike with the added chance of theft / damage that comes with it.

The other one to consider is the Clubman from the same era

Thanks - although I think the clubman was discontinued in around '87 when the rest of the range were modernised, and I believe that the earlier ones had the caliper brakes and 27" wheels - both of which i'd like to avoid if possible. Sod's law though there seem to be lots about and my reservations aside they certainly looks nice

The Classic from the ‘90’s is a lovely bike if you can find one at the right price.

This one cost me £30!

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Thanks - another cracker; where do you find them?!

Are you sure that's from the '90s? Looks like the earlier paint scheme to me (esp. with the chrome forks; which seemed to disappear post-'87)... can you remember what size the wheels were?


As a bit of an aside, can anyone throw any light on what this might be please? Advertised on FB simply as a "Raleigh tourer" - brakes and crankset suggest post '87 and 6sp cassette probably not much later than '88, yet it's not in any of the catalogues. Interestingly appears to have Gipemme dropouts at the back. Thinking it could be a custom build or maybe a refinished Royal..? The "Raleight" script on every major tube seems pretty typical of custom-builds of that era, however it's odd that it has no stickers to designate the tubing material..

Shame it's so far away from me as I'd have a shufti were it closer..

 

[Oldhippy]

I lived in Oxford for a few years and used to love pottering around in the city and surrounding countryside on my trusty Royal. I must visit the city more regularly in the future.

 

[wafter]

I lived in Oxford for a few years and used to love pottering around in the city and surrounding countryside on my trusty Royal. I must visit the city more regularly in the future.

Yeah, while the cycling infrastructure is utterly terrible, the city still lends itself well to bike use doesn't it? Where abouts did you live and what made you leave?

I miss the place so much and hope soon(ish) to get back there and live a simple, low-income, low-outgoing existance where hopefully the bulk of my journeys will be done on the bike. I had a taste of this during lockdown last year and tbh it felt like a different, utopian existance compared to where I am now. While I like longer rides outside the city it was so good just to go out and potter about as you say, just wafting about on the shopping shed with no particular destination or agenda.. Sometimes I'd only do a few miles, sometimes many more than I'd anticipated but I'd always come back feeling better than when I left.

That's what I really miss about where I am now - it's not worth riding inside the village and going outside is very much a statement of intent; requiring the motivation to get all the gear on and commit to doing a reasonable distance, when sometimes I'd not feel up to it. Riding through the city also felt a lot more sociable than round here too; yielding the occasional bit of casual human interaction without having to go overboard, and something that felt a lot more achieveable / appealing to do when tired, half-cut or just unwilling to get all the gear on.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

The earlier model with 27 inch wheels will have chrome rims. Stopping in the wet will be interesting to say the least.

No they won't. The steel 27" rims were reserved for Raleigh's budget offerings. My 1985 vintage Royal has alloy 27" rims and it stops ok either in the wet or dry even on the ancient brake pads that came with the bike. You can get Schwalbe Marathon and HS159 tyres in 27" sizes so they are still practical at present.

The early 80's Royals that I have owned over the years have all been great dependable bikes .

I missed buying a Ranndoneur a few years back and have always regretted it . If you can find a tidy one buy it .

@SkipdiverJohn has a few wise words on the subject

My standard 531 frame and forks Royal is a lovely smooth ride - the best riding frame I posess in fact. I don't get too hung up on the spec of the mechanical parts on bikes so long as they aren't junk quality. The frame is the important bit, since you can chop and change any of the components as you desire so long as you have a high quality frame to fit them to.
The ultimate wish list Raleigh Touring frames in my book are the all-531 top spec Classic and the 531ST Randonneur. I especially like the dark red paint models, and if one of these comes my way in my size at sensible money I will buy it without hesitation, same with the Classic.
Any quality touring geometry 531 frame with horizontal dropouts also has the potential to convert into a nice hub geared flat bar town bike - a lightweight sports roadster in other words. That's what I'm going to use my Ian May 531ST tourer frame for.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Correct - never any steelies on Royals.

 

[Rusty Nails]

What are the replacement bars please - I'm guessing they're not standard-spec items? Whatever they are I love the shape!

They are, appropriately, known as Randonneur bars and can still be bought new or found on eBay. Those weren't original for the bike, but I believe they were the shape that was standard on them bitd.

Difficult to put a finger on why I didn't like the Royal so much. Possibly the lower specs of the kit, or the tubing, but It wasn't quite as comfortable to ride for longer periods.

Edit: Just realised I have been talking bollux about the Royal. I confused it with the Clubman I had at the same time as the Royale Mixte 531, which was a nice bike, but one I renovated to sell on and make a bit of money. Too many bikes have passed through my hands over the years.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good afternoon,

Thanks for the link - as you say very informative! I'd like to know more about the 708; there appears to be very little about it on the net. The Reynolds wiki page suggests that that it would be used with 753 chainstays; adding weight to the suggestion that it might be the same composition and heat-treatment state as 753; just differentiated by its "unconventional" internal profile... something I still can't really get my head around since (for the same overall mass of material and OD) I'd have expected simply increasing wall thinkness of a simple round section to give the best stiffness.
......
I also notice that in the linked thread one chap had a pretty catastrophic frame failure; which doesn't bode well - although it seemed his frame / its constituent tubes were a bit of an unknown quantity..
.....

The thinking behind the ribs in 708 was that the loads on a bicycle tube are well known and only apply in certain directions, for example

1. There are frequent and high magnitude forces trying to bend the top tube upwards; whenever you go over a bump.
2. There are very infrequent and lower magnitude forces trying to force the top tube down 45 degrees to the left.

So by having a rib to help with 1 and just ignoring 2 you can have an even stronger frame than one you would get by adding the extra metal evenly spaced around the tube.

However as 708 wasn't around for very long it seems reasonable to suspect that this a nice idea in theory and pretty irrelevant in practice.

I too have had a 531 frame fail catastrophically, it would probably have been life changing if there had been a car or truck just behind me when it happened, so I am cautious about assuming that a 1980s or 1990s frame must have plenty of live left in it.

Bye

Ian

 

[rogerzilla]

If you go back far enough, did any have (shudder) Raleigh threading?

 

[midlife]

I think they are too modern to have Raleigh threading?

 

[Blue Hills]

I think they are too modern to have Raleigh threading?

this is the BB threading I referred to upthread I assume?
I met someone on a London ride a while ago who had discovered his bike* had this.
He was slightly P'ed off but had just decided to scrap it when the BB failed.
Out of interest when did Raleigh dump this craziness?

(not that the bike industry has given up on this sort of nonsense)

* edit - pretty sure wasn't a Royal or Randonneur.

 

[Gunk]

I think they are too modern to have Raleigh threading?

The Royal I restored last year had standard threading

 

[ren531]

I have a 1997 Raleigh Ranndoneur 708 and I find it a very versatile machine quite fast and nimble when unloaded and throw 4 panniers on it and its as solid as a rock no matter how much weight you put on it. Changed the drops to flats but otherwise mostly original.

 

[Hover Fly]

If you go back far enough, did any have (shudder) Raleigh threading?

You would have to go back to the 50s to find lightweight Raleighs with their odd threading.

 

[GuyBoden]

I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but there's a Randonneur for sale on Retrobike:
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/raleigh-rondonneur.438182/

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Out of interest when did Raleigh dump this craziness?

They really never did, the types of bikes that traditionally used Raleigh's own in-house spec threads kept them right until those bike models went out of production.
You need to understand the history of Raleigh, and where they came from. Raleigh for most of it's existence, was primarily a large scale maker of bread & butter utility bikes. They were not known for making lightweight sporty stuff and their facilities were geared towards churning out millions of very similar 3-speed roadsters of a pretty similar mechanical spec. Since they were big enough to make even small parts from raw materials they didn't have to bow to anybody else in the industry. They could just do things their own way and ignore everyone else because they didn't buy in much stuff from outside suppliers.
The gradual creep in of industry standard ISO threads can probably be attributed to Raleigh buying up Carlton Cycles, whose main business was lower volume lightweight sporting stuff and who had no tie-in to the Nottingham production facilities at first. Once Carlton was owned, the higher end 531 frame builds were concentrated at Worksop, who used ISO threads anyway, and the Raleigh-threaded gas pipe 3-speeds continued to be made at Nottingham as they had been for decades.
By the time MTB's became popular, ISO was the norm for pretty much everything apart from Raleigh 3-speeds, so those new models were ISO threaded but you will still find Raleigh oddities like BMX-dimensioned steerers and stems used on some Raleigh MTB's! They were a law unto themselves and never danced to anyone else's tune all the time they were a large volume manufacturer. They didn't have to.