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alansmurphy.
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June 13, 2017 at 9:49 pm #27225
JonnyFoxtrot5
Hi all, I’m currently using my Voodoo Bizango mountain bike for road riding as I can’t justify splashing out on a road bike as well. Was chatting to one of my colleagues who mentioned his Dad had an old Rayleigh Dynatech road bike which he’d be happy with £50 for. He only knows that it’s about 15 years old and well looked after and gave me some pics (see below).
Can anyone help me with advice on whether it’s worth a shout at £50? Were they good bikes for their time? Would I be better off putting the £50 aside and saving for a £2-300 bike from the likes of Decathlon?
Cheers!
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And when you’ve done several
And when you’ve done several thousand miles on it, become obsessed etc. it will make a cracking fixie!
Grahamd
£50! Like many on this forum
£50! Like many on this forum I expect, my tyres cost more than that!
The words gift horse and mouth spring to mind.
SingleSpeed
Christ for fifty quid?
Christ for fifty quid?
You should see the amount of crap I have lying around I’ve bought on a whim 🙂
The carbon fibre frame with 1″ threaded headtube…WTF am I going to do with that!
Fettling and accumulating old bikes is a joy, takes you away from the bullshit that you need this seasons Ultegra, you’ll die on the next climb if your next bike doesn’t have 11-32 gears, going downhill is unsafe without discs.
Renovate or just ride who cares just enjoy riding retro bikes, if nothing else it just reminds you how amazing riding the summer bike worth more than a second hand car really is
pockstone
Upgrade my arse!
Upgrade my arse!
Buy it – ride it! 50 quidsworth of anybody’s money.
Anonymous
nice one, I rescued a Kona
nice one, I rescued a Kona Lava Dome from the local tip back in the olden days (read mid 90s.lol), had full LX groupset including Mavic/LX wheels (though the BB shell was threaded), set me back £20…get in. Once I’d got it home I was like how the hell is that going to be the right size for me as it was tiny. Massively long seatpost, bit of fettling and away i went, the Conti Goliath semi-slicks were the bollocks and it was a lovely little winter commuter/trail bike until i decided to sell it on.
That was the first MTB I owned after 13 years or so of just riding drop bar bikes but i went for flat bar for my commuter/utility bikes ever since, the first of the Ridgeback genesis flat bar road bikes which I swapped for a spesh globe pro 8+years ago, so do ride smaller frames but somehow the bigger frames that I’m used to feel that much more easy position wise.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:Well worth £50, just needs some fettling, don’t stress about the bonding of the tubes, it’s not going to fall apart on you even worst case scenario.if the gear ratios are okay for what you need, just strip the bits off, clean the cassette, chain, c/rings, derailleurs, re-align the front d and ensure the shiifters are dropping the rear d in the right place, check the brakes and pads, lube the cables or maybe replace them if that makes you feel at ease and away you go.
It’ll only feel a bit big because you’re not used to riding a frame that big. At 5ft 11 I ride a 62cm Raleigh with ease.
The only problem you would have IF you wanted to to upgrade is this is fairly likely to be 126mm OLN at the back, you could squeeze a modern wheelset in but personally I wouldn’t.
Just fettle it, ride it and enjoy it, the only upgrade I’d suggest is some new tyres.
500EX is just below Ultegra and mechanically no different.
Enjoy.
Thanks very much! Helps put my mind at rest anyhow 🙂 I took it out for a ride after work and I actually really enjoyed it! Much better than the MTB anyway lol
Well worth £50, just needs
Well worth £50, just needs some fettling, don’t stress about the bonding of the tubes, it’s not going to fall apart on you even worst case scenario.
if the gear ratios are okay for what you need, just strip the bits off, clean the cassette, chain, c/rings, derailleurs, re-align the front d and ensure the shiifters are dropping the rear d in the right place, check the brakes and pads, lube the cables or maybe replace them if that makes you feel at ease and away you go.
It’ll only feel a bit big because you’re not used to riding a frame that big. At 5ft 11 I ride a 62cm Raleigh with ease.
The only problem you would have IF you wanted to to upgrade is this is fairly likely to be 126mm OLN at the back, you could squeeze a modern wheelset in but personally I wouldn’t.
Just fettle it, ride it and enjoy it, the only upgrade I’d suggest is some new tyres.
500EX is just below Ultegra and mechanically no different.
Enjoy.
Dnnnnnn
LastBoyScout wrote:I once had a date with a girl who’d never seen downtube shifters before! They’re absolutely fine, one you get used to them.I disagree. Girls who have never seen downtube shifters are nothing but trouble.
BobbyG
2055 Performance Enhanced
2055 Performance Enhanced Tubeset – 52 tons tensile general purpose tubeset, featuring Chome-Moly-Manganese butted frame tubes teamed with Manganese Molybdenum narrow oval taper-gauge fork blades.
There were further 2060, 2070, 2080 models in Reynolds steel, and 2325 was the “aerospace grade” Titanium
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/d/51205-3/Raleigh+Dyna-Tech+Frames+brochure.pdf
Thanks all for the continued
Thanks all for the continued advice and info. I’m fairly sure it is one of the steel tubed ones rather than titanium but I think for the sake of £50 I can see how I get on with it and road bikes in general and then sell on for what I paid for hopefully down the line. I think given the suggested costs of replacing shifters I’ll probably just get used to the originals! Appreciate all the comments, cheers!
MKultra
The bits tick all the retro
The bits tick all the retro boxes but bear in mind that the “space shuttle” glue as used on the lugs is known to fail and come unbonded, I have seen a couple that have gone that way as someone else has mentioned up thread, they were the road frames though not the Dynatech M-Trax MTB like I owned. If you want a cheap hack buy a Decathlon as the others have suggested. On the steel Dynatech the tubes are unusual in that they rifle them like a gun barrel to remove material rather than the usual butting method to reduce weight. I wouldnt suggest cutting it half to check though.
LastBoyScout
For £50, I’d buy it just for
For £50, I’d buy it just for the heck of it, especially in that colour.
A friend of mine did the Etape a few years ago on a similar vintage frame with a few upgrades.
My old lunchtime runabout has Shimano 300EX kit and that’s mostly fine after quite a lot of years of minimal maintenance – main issue is the front brake caliper needs a good strip and clean.
I once had a date with a girl who’d never seen downtube shifters before! They’re absolutely fine, one you get used to them.
Miller
This is what I think was
This is what I think was called a Dynatech 500 or 700 at the time, 1989/1990. I remember this well because I had a Dynatech frame. Raleigh Special Products was the high-end part of Raleigh when Raleigh was still a going concern. Their Dynatech frames made a bit of a splash when they were released, I still have a glossy brochure somewhere.
The frames were constructed with various tubings glued into alloy lugs. The tubing here is likely to be 501 cromoly steel. My two frames suffered with the pinned and glued joint of seatstays to seat cluster becoming loose. But if this frame is still sound after all these years that may not be a concern. Shimano 500EX was a low-end but decent group, the Tiagra of its day.
However: quill stem, downtube shifter, narrow rear spacing, thin handlebars – there’s a lot of old tech on display. £50 if it’s all working ok is fair enough and I’m sure that front mech only needs tweaking. But I don’t think it’s worth ‘upgrading’ this to make it into something it isn’t. Bikes have moved on in so many ways that you might be better served spending £300 at Decathlon or wherever if you want something modern. Otherwise enjoy it for what it is. Cyclists managed with downtube shifters for decades after all, you’ll soon get used to it.
JonnyFoxtrot5 wrote:Thanks for the info! Managed to get a ride on it this lunch time after getting some air in the tyres. Frame is 59/60cm and did feel a little big but definitely not small for my 6ft frame. There’s no model stickers anywhere on it except at the bottom where it states 2055 “Performance Bonded Tube Set” and has a serial number starting AA. Also there’s one saying “Special Products Division” if that makes any difference. Gears and Brakes all shifted and stopped really well and are all labeled 500EX. Only issue was that the down tube gear shifters were a nightmare to use and that the pedal crank kept hitting the front derailleur when I pedaled past, not sure if that’s a fault or just needs some adjustment. Still not sure whether or not to throw £50 at it as I’d definitely want to change those shifters, if its even possible? I’d just be using it for some commuting and mild road riding with a friend (who has a hybrid).It’s definitely possible to change the shifters, although they’re not cheap – likely to be more than the bike itself (although ebay might be worth a punt). And there are a few other things to bear in mind…
- new shifter units may be designed for more sprockets than the bike has (I’m guessing 7 currently?), so you’d need a new cassette to match the shifters. Shimano’s Claris shifters are 8 speed (although by a strange coincidence, Campagnolo 10 speed shifters – which can be quite cheap – also do. Google “Shimergo”)
- it’s possible (although I think unlikely – is the rear hub also 500EX?) that this bike has a freewheel hub rather than a freehub (google it!). Freewheels are the older style and there’s not much choice of cassettes for them, especially if you want >7
- thirdly, if there’s only 6 or 7 sprockets on the bike now, it’s likely that the frame spacing at the axle is a little narrower than modern standards (this one might be 126mm compared with modern (non-disc) axles which are usually 130mm for 8/9/10 sprockets). On a steel frame this isn’t a big issue – it’s just a little harder to fit the wheel, or else you can ‘cold set’ the thing to widen it a little. But the freehub body may be too narrow to accept an 8 speed cassette – you should be able to fit a new freehub body and adjust the axle to suit.
So, all is technically possible, and not difficult but the cost of upgrade parts isn’t trivial, and professional labour would cost even more.
I suppose I should have caveated my initial post to say the bike looks a bargain if you have a big box of tools and spare parts, and like tinkering with old bicycles (or your mate does), less so if you need to pay someone for parts and labour. Then Decathlon becomes more attractive…
The good news is that the front mech probably just needs adjustment!
OldRidgeback
Is that the one with some
Is that the one with some titanium tubing? If so, it’s worth more than £50 just for the scrap value. I’d buy it in any case. The front mech can be adjusted most likely.
Going by the pic in the blog post below it looks like one of the entry level models but the review is good all the same.
http://silverryder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bicycle-my-first-bicycle-was-in-fact.html
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