eBay! Love it or loathe it, every now and then it does serve a purpose.
Personally I loathe it and while I’m definately not a fan, it has actually accounted for a small amount of my new arrivals. I do prefer to collect frames that fly under the radar but sometimes you see a frame that is too nice and too special to ignore. So I watch the bids and try to figure out where an item’s price is going and what, if anything, it could add to my SBDU collection. On balance, SB9000 had more positives than negatives. The benefits I’d gain for my collection outweighed the one big negative which was that it had been viewed by thousands online and I clearly wasn’t the only bidder who wanted it.
I normally see if a frame can meet specific criteria. Will it fill any gaps? Is it original? Originality is hugely important. Does it have a story? Does it possess frame features that I don’t currently have? Will it create or add to a sub collection? Here are some of the positives and the things about SB9000 that I thought were worthwhile having…
- It is another addition to my small but growing SBDU Nottingham sub-collection
- SB9000 is a perfect partner to SB8868, an original Raleigh Banana 753R road frame. Maybe a unique pairing.
- It is a 24″ wheel low profile SBDU frame and fills a gap in my range of frame types
- It was bundled with the original 24″ Campagnolo/Mavic/Vittoria Crono CS wheel
- It has barely been ridden and is in excellent original condition, it has only covered a few thousand metres
- The high SB number and original SBDU transfer will help to define the SB number and SBDU date timeline
- The track ends are Shimano UFP 10 which might just complete the set of every type of SBDU frame end
But the thing that tops the lot is that this frame was ridden by Dave Mann, a member of the Raleigh Banana team. That final but very significant detail is the last of those positives… it means that every single SBDU track frame I have in the collection has a named rider associated with it… GH6175 (Günter Haritz), SB632 (Beryl Burton), SH377T (Steve Heffernan), JR178T (Jan Raas) and SB9000 (Dave Mann).
SB8851, SB8868 and SB8945 are my three other SBDU Nottingham frames, all road frames and all built with Reynolds 753R.
As you can see, SB9000 is the perfect partner for SB8868, my 753R Raleigh Banana road bike.
I do have one other SB numbered low profile, it is SB9529, a 650c front wheel Dyna-Tech built by Raleigh’s Special Products Division. But the 24″ wheel was the original design by the SBDU and this frame came bundled with the original front wheel, a Campagnolo Record hub, Mavic Mach 2 CD 2 24 spoke rim and Vittoria Crono CS tub.
Apart from a light covering of surface rust, dust, some grime and scratches to a couple of frame transfers, SB9000 is in remarkably good condition for a 30 year old frame. It should respond well to some light paint renovation and polishing.
The Shimano UFP 10 frame ends add the finishing touch to what I think is a full set of SBDU ends including Campagnolo 1010, 1010A, 1010B, 1010B Portacatena, 1060, 1053, Shimano SFR SF21 & SF22 and ‘Raleigh’. I think my collection covers them all and I’ll publish a separate post about that soon.
SB9000 is my fifth Raleigh SBDU track frame and the fifth to have a named rider associated with it. It is now among very good company.
… so I wanted SB9000 for all those reasons.
I’ll explain more about this special type of frame in the next post when I look at it and it’s geometry in more detail. These frames weren’t built with standard lugs, they were built specifically to fit one person and the specific event that person would ride. That probably explains why it was only used a couple of times and then hung up for nearly 30 years.
The later SBDU Nottingham SB frame number timeline is still a bit of a puzzle because SB frame production definately seemed to slow down after it relocated from Ilkeston. But a couple of points on this frame are making me think that SB9000 is a 1988 frame; and probably a late 1988 frame. I’m currently working on something to try and show the progression of frame numbering from SBDU Ilkeston to SBDU Nottingham to Special Products.
And that’s all for now. This blog post was just a very quick introduction and a look at the condition that SB9000 arrived in. I’ll give it some TLC soon and see how much of the original shine I can bring back to the paint.
