1974 Raleigh Grand Prix (Nov 2011)

I got this bike, along with a white Peugeot U0-8, from my favorite bike finding location Bike Works the local bike co-op.  They do good work for the community, they have great prices on project bikes and they usually have a good variety -whats not to like?  Little did I know when I selected this Bronze Green beauty that I would be in for some major education.

It was your typical musty dusty 70's 10 speed and I figured hey "how hard can this be"  the cotters on the Takara were no problem so this should be a breeze..... WRONG.

I started as normal with taking the bike apart down to the frame and fork.  When I got to the crank that is when the problems began.  My use-a-big-C-clamp method with a socket over the threaded end of the cotter method which had worked great on the Takara totally failed.  The process devolved into bitter feud with me a hammer and a punch on one side and the cotter on the other.  Long story short I effectively wrecked the crank removing the cotter.  I went to a bad place, fortunately no pictures exist of that fateful day.  In the end I spent more $$$ on a bike tool than ever before and got a Bikesmith design cotter press and in subsequent rehabs of cottered cranks it has served flawlessly.

Here's a shot of just how grimy an old 10 speed can get also notice the cool, proprietary brake cable holder on the Gran Prix.  Word to the wise do NOT lose the small cable bolt that screws into that bridge.

So I destroyed the cottered crank, no big deal I had a spare 3 piece bottom bracket and I picked up a vintage 3 piece crank set so problem solved....WRONG.  Raleigh in their infinite wisdom had their own threading on some of the early 70s bikes, not British standard noooo they used a Raleigh proprietary threading so my British bottom bracket cups for the 3 piece crank did not work with the Grand Prix bb.  At that point I walked away from this bike and worked on other projects for a few months.  When I came back to it I ended up using the original cottered crank BB cups, that I had saved thank goodness!, and got a used cottered bb spindle and yes another freaking cottered crank.  Oh the irony.  To top it off I realized on getting home that the crankset I had selected was a 52/45 set up.  In hilly Seattle a 45-28 low gear ain't gonna cut it so I had to scrouge around to swap the 45t inner  for a more manageable 40t chain ring.  Finally the crankset all came together.

After the *&^%$#@ crank situation the rest of the bike went together fairly easily.  I did some white accents that I think turned out well

It  ended up being a pretty nice bike when finished, that sold to a friend of a friend who wanted to start bike commuting.  So that whole thing about avoiding cottered cranks if you are a first timer in my last post- this is why ;-)

A note to new 10 speed refurbishers

After refurbishing 14 bike boom era 10/12 speeds over the last 18 months I have learned a few things about the process-mostly by messing up! So in the hopes that even one prospective bike refurbisher can learn from my mistakes/experience/pain/tears I thought I would put together a list of guidelines:  Working on old 10 speeds for the beginner.  This comes with a big dose of IMHO and is by no means complete but as this time of year is reflective I have been giving this some thought for a few days and wanted to get it down on (virtual) paper:

1. Read up before you wrench.  One thing I did a decent job of was doing alot or reading before I ever started taking an old 10 speed apart. With the internet there is an enormous wealth of knowledge out there; excellent links, blogs, video,  exploded diagrams etc.  You can use my blog and links lists as a starting point but I would advise googling away and see what you find.  Its also good to have a flesh and blood resource like your local bike shop (LBS) or a friend with skills and tools.  Finally good old paper is nice to have, I use a well thumbed copy of Zinn and the art of Road bike Maintenance, people also rave about Parks tools Big blue book , and I have found that you can pick up 70s era bike maintenance books for pennies via Amazon.com Such as; The Complete book of bicycling -Sloane, Richards Bicycle Book -Ballantine, and Anybody's bike book -Cuthebertson to name a few.
2. Be Picky.  There were literally Millions of 10 speeds built in the bike boom era so don't feel like you have to jump at the first bike you come across, as you develop a network of places to look ( that's a post for another time) you will start to realize there are plenty of bikes out there so if bike you find doesn't speak to you and or isn't dirt cheap and/or free then walk on by.  A few of my rules are;
1. Is it lugged?  Have I mentioned I love lugs?  Based on my experience selling refurbished 10 speeds lots of other people do to.  They are just classy and usually mean at least a bit of craftsmanship went into the bike.
2. Is it a bike I would want for myself?  Its my hope that if the bike speaks to me it will speak even louder to prospective buyers after I am finished giving it a huge does of TLC.
3. Is it an "average" size?  Now I am a pretty averaged sized guy at just shy of 6 feet so I am biased here but mostly I look at this from the prospective pool of buyers.  There are alot more folks out there in the 52cm to 62cm frame size then there are at the extremes.
4. Is the price right?  This is going to depend on whether you buying a bike to build for yourself versus buying one to rebuild.  The bikes I have spent the most on were ones I intended to keep so I wasn't as worried about turning a profit but the less you pay up front the more room you have for profit.  More on pricing when I write about finding bikes in a future post.
5. Does it have an obvious problems? I will talk more about this below but try to put aside your lust for beautiful lugged bikes for a minute and look at this prospective project bike critically is there a bent wheel or a missing part or wait a sec is the fork bent? 
3. Give it a critical eye.  Remember these bike are 30 plus years old and they may an issue or two, you want to discover a deal breaker or issue up front not after you get the bike home, it may also help you bargain with the seller.   Some common issues to look for;
1. Damage to the frame or fork, a small ding in the tubes is one thing a major bend or crack is a red flag.  Randy at MyTenSpeeds has a great article about this.
2. Bent or badly out of true wheels.  Give the wheels a spin do spin freely or do they rub on the brakes?  If the bike wobbles like a drunk frat boy that might mean it needs more than just a bit of truing.  Do you have the skills to tackle that?
3. Stuck stem or seat post?  If you can bring some allen wrenches and box end open end wrenches with you so can loosen the seat post collar and stem bolt and see if both them move freely up and down, if they do no worries and if not you might have just found a big PIA.  Don't forget to snug up the bolts after you do this check.  While stuck stems and seat posts are not insurmountable problems they can add a lot of work and time to a refurb and may also indicate a level of neglect (lack of grease on these parts) that may extend to other parts of the bike 
4. Rust?  These are Steel bikes so rust isn't uncommon but there is a little rust here and there in paint scratches and there is systematic left-outside-by-the-seashore-for-decades rust.  If you have a bike with a good deal of rust, and probably not good paint, then you may be looking at sanding down and repainting the bike.  Again not an insurmountable problem but it does add considerable time and expense to the project and once you take off original paint and decals etc your bike loses some of its "collectable" value if that matters to you.

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4. A few things to avoid.  At least until you get some projects under your belt, I ignored all three of these guidelines and learned alot but also had some major frustration along the way:
• Bikes with cottered cranks due to potential issues with removing cotters without special tools or other methods.  Look for my upcoming post on the 74 Raleigh Grand Prix where I had this issue.
• French bikes before 1982 due to proprietary threading and sizing.  Again more info on this in future posts.
• Department store bikes (Sears, JC Penny's, Wards etc) nothing wrong with them but most are cheaply built and with so many great bikes out there from England, Japan, France (see above), Italy etc you have a number of better bikes to choose from, this gets back to being picky.  See my recent post on the Sears Free Spirit.
5. Have Fun! I mean otherwise why do it?  The whole process of finding a bike is kind of like a treasure hunt and and the end of the line you have hopefully found a diamond in the rough that you can bring back to life for your own enjoyment or someone else's. 

Before

After

1975 Takara (July 2011)

Make: Takara

Model: Unknown

Year:  1975ish

Obtained: May 2011

Found: Community Garage Sale

Paid: $25
 
Every year in late May West Seattle does a neighborhood garage sale, so on one Saturday you can hit a ton of sales in one go.  I had already scored a great Miyata 912 at a garage sale the month previous (more on that in another post) and was eager to find more hidden gems.

Well after looking for most of the morning I had found exactly zero 10 speeds and had decided to give up and drive home.  As I drove slowly down a side street my peripheral vision caught a bike shaped object in a garage and I braked, parked and went to investigate.  Sure enough it was dusty "all original" Takara 10 speed.  The owner indicated it was his college bike and based on the cobwebs in the spokes and the dust covering the bike he had hung up soon after graduation in, I am guessing, the early 80's.  He agreed to part ways with it for $25 and I had my 10 speed find for the day.

It was musty and dusty and dirty and had a funky handlebar bag attached, about what you would expect from a bike stored in a Garage since the first Reagan Administration. Mostly SunTour components with stem shifters and "safety brake levers all speak to this being an entry level steed, the perfect campus cruiser for a student in the late 70s.  The frame is made in Japan and in pretty much all phases this bike is a step up from the Schwinn Varisty and probably weighs 10 pounds less easy.

It was also to be my first, but not the last, experience with the cottered crank.   My suggestion to beginner road bike restorers- avoid cottered cranks, but more on that later when I talk about the 70s Raleigh Gran Prix.

One thing I absolutely love about older bikes is the head badges and the Takara's looked like it was inspired by English heraldry and when you are a company in Tulsa, OK importing Japanese bikes why not an English family crest for your head badge?

The rebuild was pretty standard for this bike, wash it, strip it down, wax it and reassemble with the usual new stuff; tires, tubes, cables, housing, bar tape, chain etc.  And of course lots of new grease in the main bearings.  I was fortunate, especially considering the cottered crank, not to run into any issues with this bike.  I liked it and could ride it but as a 25 inch (63 cm) frame it was a bit unwieldy for me as a 23 1/2 is just about perfect for my height.  I ended up selling it to a nice tall young lady who was looking to get a geared bike after riding fixie.   I really liked the blue after it got cleaned up and waxed.

And interestingly the first two bikes I sold in the summer of 2011 were to ladies and they weren't "step thru" ladies frames. Cool.

Ride. Smile. Repeat.