Subject: Consider 50th Anniversary Lenton Sport options
From: "Richard T. Booth" [email protected]

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2001

This weekend, I'm going to strip my Raleigh Lenton Sport frame of parts and box it up. On Monday, I'm going to screw my courage to the wall and send it to CyclArt for respray and new transfers.

The Lenton Sport is 50 years old this year. It has 531 straight guage main tubes. It has a steel shelled AW hub and 26 x 1 1/4 Dunlop high pressure steel rims. I still have the original bar and stem although the bars have been bent as long as I've had the bike. I still have the original plastic mudguards but they have chunks broken off. I don't have the original steel brakes with the cables that are leaded at both ends. I don't have the original trigger. I do have the original B15 saddle although it's badly cracked.

It's a beautiful easy bike to ride. I think of Frank Patterson scenes every time I do.

So (finally), here's my problem. I can't decide which, if any, braze-ons to request.

Briefly the three options.
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#1. Period correct. No additional brazeons and none removed.

#2. No hybrid gearing. Seat tube bottle bosses, shift cable stops on top tube, and double pulleys to support AW and S5 Sturmey Archer hubs

#3. Support hybrid gearing too. All of #2 plus headlug eyelet stops, bb drilled and threaded for modern shift cable guide, eyelet stop on chainstay

Case for and against #1 period correct
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For: I have a friend with a '51 (same year) MG YT who does a couple of car shows every year. He's asked me if I'd add the bike to his display. It seems like irreverant or unseemly, somehow to go modifying the frame when I have so many rides.

Against: The Lenton Sport doesn't seem to be a collectors item and neither I, nor my heirs and assigns, will ever recover what I'm about to put in it. I'd never travel to do a Lars Anderson show or anything like that. I really can't ride it with the original bars and stem and brakes no matter what. But I love riding it with 70's style controls. If I'm going to keep it original and enjoy riding it, I'll also need to go out looking for stuff like period bottles and cages, and I'll have to constantly be after the clamp-on bits to be sure they're not collecting rust after every ride that contains a puddle splash. Heck, I probably won't feel like I can ride it in the wet. If I do option #1, I'm pretty much restricting myself to 3-speed gearing. I suppose that's not a terrible problem. I enjoy 50-mile fixed rides now.

Case for and against #2: no hybrid gearing
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For: I already have an S5 hub and a nice alloy shell that I could put it in. It seems like it would be nice to have a little more gear range. It also would be nice to just put a Nitto stainless touring bottle cage to brazed on bosses on the seat tube. Seems like an elegant accessory there. On this bike the braxe-on pulley mount that supports the three speed cable is at the junction of the top tube and the seat tube. I strap the fulcrum (stop) forward on the top tube. To support 5-speed cabling, I'd have Cyclart double up the pulley arrangement so that there's another pulley on the left and brazed on stops on the head-tube instead of the clamped on fulcrums. I'd keep the pump pegs on the down tube as they are, even though the pumps that use them are only marginally useful. If the pump were gone, I might not think of Frank Patterson scenes when I ride the bike.

Against: Is even this much hot-rodding unseemly? Will I regret it? Will it be so much change that it will make me remember that I'm not in the English countryside? It won't be very useful in my friend's car show.

Case for and against #3: support for hybrid gearing
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For: I rode this bike a fair amount in the 70's and early 80's. Shortly after Michael was 2, we got a Cannondale Bugger trailer. Right after I'd hauled Michael and a friend up our front hill, I found a pair of Cyclo conversions complete with DT lever and pull-string derailer. After that, the Lenton has always been equipped with Cyclo conversion -- three sprockets pressed onto carrier that fits onto the Sturmey Archer driver, making an AW into a 9speed or an S-5 into a 15 speed. Bear in mind that the spacing of these gears is not a half-steppers delight but it does give a higher high and lower low. I've also become fascinated by other, more sophisticated ways of doing hybrid gearing, with and without multiple chainwheels. Sheldon's 63-speed O.T.B. is an example of the interest altho' I'd never take it so far. Of course, if I did the brazeons to allow front and rear derailer and left and right Sturmey shifting, it wouldn't mean I couldn't configure the bike more simply. Just ignore that stuff.

Against: Well. Just two (or is it one) more cable stop eyelets on the head-tube. If we drilled the bottom bracket for a modern cable guide, the drilling would go right through the serial number. But who cares about a serial number when I'm doing all this 1970's epicyclic gear freakin'? Really, I want to experience this bike in another space.

Well. Let me know what you think. Somethin's gonna happen.

Richard
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Richard Booth, CIS Director
The Principia
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(618) 374-5135
(618) 583-0785 (pager)

From: Marcus Coles [email protected]

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001

Just because it does not currently have a high collectable value does not make it any less valuable as a piece of history.

While thousands of these were made, how many still exist? Probably not very many. It is a snapshot in the history of sports bicycling, a simple, affordable sporting mount.

If you had not already guessed I vote for a restoration.

Marcus

From: Will Rodger [email protected]

Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001

Well, you're describing something which is purely a matter of taste, but here's how I did my old (American) Paramount:

Rather than adding or subtracting everything, I changed only those things which were clearly superior about modern bikes without losing the spirit of the old bike. That meant adding braze-ons for the standard stuff, spreading the rear triangle to 130mm, but no STI or Ergo. (They don't make a lot of sense on a bike that old and, to me anyway, add nothing in riding enjoyment.)

If I were you, I'd go for the mid-range restoration, and add the braze-ons, minus the bottle bits, since bottles and roadsters (in my view) clash aesthetically. I'd also forget about the hybrid stuff. I'd aim for a bike that knows what it is instead of one that wants to be all things. In fact, I might even forget about the dual cable controls, since SA has long made 5 speeds with a single trigger control.

The result would be a roadster without all the nasty clamps hanging everywhere -- in other words, what Pashley does today with its line of traditional bikes.

Good luck with it, whatever you decide on.

Will "Prospero" Rodger
Alexandria, VA