Purchased from Tom in Manchester (England road team coach), who hand-built the wheels from Mavic rims for me. Back then 27" rims had not been replaced by the 700cc continentals.
The bike was made in the Worksop shop outside Nottingham, the year that Raleigh bought up the Carlton factory. I recall Tom telling me it was the frame 51 that year, but the serial # on it does not reflect that. The following year Raleigh absorbed the brand completely and it became the Raleigh Super Course and changed to the maroon base colour for the frameset.
The Raleigh road race team used the same criterium setup that year with 531 tubing throughout, except their machines had full Campagnolia everything while mine has the Shimano Suntour deraillieur and Raleigh chainset but Campag' hubs. Top gear is 120" which you need to be pretty fit to turn on the flat. Of course back then I paid 300 pounds for the bike, and it would have been 150+ more for the full Campag' setup - a small fortune - since you could by a scooter for that money! My friend Mike from Bristol remarked to me "You paid *how much* for a bike, and you did not get an engine with it?!?"
Everything is original equipment except for the seven speed rear gear hub and thin factor chain which my brother replaced and of course the handle bar tape, which on the original was a matching brown to the seat. And the road tyres I added later with the Kevlar linings - just hate to get a puncture on a ride! The 27" frame size means that the bike weighs in at 23lbs. The bottle cage, rear seat bag and speedometer I added since the bike has been in the USA. On the maintenance side this year the bottom bracket needed replacing and the wheels have of course had several spoke tunings. The brake blocks are Weinmann that I put on when I bought it - still going strong after all these years and thousands of miles.
I rode this bike in Somerset, Wales and London, and my brother rode it for five years while I was overseas. Since then it has clocked up some thousands of miles here in Maryland, USA. I love the Christophe toe clips too, again top of the line back then, only Raleigh had the pull to get such equipment onto a machine that mere mortals could afford.
Anyway - this bike still rides just wonderfully and I use it regularly every week through spring to autumn each year, and winter - weather permitting!
Click here to see GPS tracking mashup interactive map, plus altitude and speed graphs of my 8 mile route around Damascus Recreational Park area.
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