Renovated Raleigh

Earlier this year I rescued an old Raleigh as it was put on the curb. I finished renovating it this weekend.

It looked like this in when I brought it home:

Notice the old “quadrant” shifter:

I updated the tires, bar grips, and one brake cable.

I still wanted a proper light, so it would be a properly useful bicycle.
I took an old bottle generator I had lying around and fitted it to the rear, but for bright, reliable lights, I built a simple rectifier feeding a BuckToot feeding a pair of Luxeon LEDs. The front is amber with a 15-degree spread, aimed slightly down; the rear is a Lambertian red element with the focussing lens ripped off. Each light is glued to a heat-sink/guard with thermal epoxy which is in turn attached to its bicycle mount with Marine-tex epoxy.

and I still needed to replace the pie plate (using some hobby-shop plastic sheet),

and I decided that the saddle was old, squeaky, ratty, and not all that comfortable. So I bought a Brooks Flyer. Nicest, most expensive saddle I’ve ever owned, and appropriate to the bike.

All done!