Question about vintage Raleigh bikes.

[shadaboot27]

My job involves working with pre 50's bicycles every day, most of them being Raleigh's and I've become quite fond of certain models, like Lentons, Trents, Clubmans, RRA, basically all the sporty type bikes. but what I want to know is, back in the 50's, 40's 30's and so on did each model of bike come out the factory exactly the same? Or did the buyer pre order it and have the choice of additional extras? Like lamps, different bars, saddles and so on? Because each Raleigh I seem to work on seem to be different to others even when they are the exact same model.

 

[raleighnut]

Some of the race models were frame only from Raleigh with a lot of the others you are talking 60-80 years of parts wearing out and being replaced with whatever the owner preferred or could afford. Owners tended to keep their bikes and not scrap/sell them after a couple of years so some may be 1 owner from new but maybe only the frame is still standard/original.

 

[shadaboot27]

Yes I'm sure that is the case as well, but when I look at old bicycle catalogs, certain things come as extras. For instance it would cost more to have a 3 speed gear over a single speed. But I guess each model of bike changed slightly each year it was produced as well. The reason I asked the original question is because I'm not very fond of having lamps and big heavy dynohubs on my bikes, so I'm wondering if having lamps was an added extra back then? Because I want to not have the lamps but I also want my bikes to be as original looking as possible. I only want to take the lamps off if they would of been produced without lamps, do you get what I mean?

 

[hatherton_wood]

You can certainly tell a lot by studying many examples even with the possibility of replacement parts over the years. The dynohub was certainly an optional extra on many models. But bike shops could easily have added extras at the time of order.. e.g a 4 speed hub so the bike may have been upgraded from that supplied by Raleigh. I've also noticed that frames can be 2 or 3 years older than the hubs so I guess they were using up stock before producing another batch. Makes sense really. They do seem very variable in what was fitted I agree.

 

[lukAs98]

@shadaboot27 can you help identify if this is a lenton or clubman? Or if it's not either? You obviously know a lot about these bikes so any help would be greatly appreciated! (I have a threed on vintage section about it too with more photos)

 

[User42423]

@shadaboot27 can you help identify if this is a lenton or clubman? Or if it's not either? You obviously know a lot about these bikes so any help would be greatly appreciated! (I have a threed on vintage section about it too with more photos)

The suffix "T" in the frame number suggests a date of between 1951 & 1957.