Raleigh Castorama Reynolds 753 SBW9262 – New Arrival

I know a bit about SBDU frames, all self taught and researched from my own collection and image library. However, I never profess to being knowledgeable about anything “Raleigh” that falls outside of the SBDU. The era before the SBDU at Raleigh’s Worksop/Carlton facility, and then the later Raleigh Special Products Division are both areas that I’ve only ever tentatively dipped my toes in. This Raleigh ‘Castorama’ falls into that later period.

New Arrival

This must be my most delayed ‘New Arrival’ post, but as the end of the year is just around the corner, I thought I should get it sorted. So here are a few quick images and some basic details about SBW9262.

Purchase

Unlike an email dropping into my inbox which has been the typical way that I’ve bought new frames over the last couple of years, this bike literally dropped into my place of work, Recyke y’bike. To be exact, it arrived as a donation at our Durham shop, and they sent over some images to me, together with a few questions asking for some info about it. These are the images.

It’s important that the integrity of the charity I work for is protected and that they also benefit from the donation, so we have policies and procedures that staff and volunteers need to follow regarding pricing and documentation. I made an offer to our General Manager and it was accepted. I paid the price, logged the purchase and the bike was mine (I didn’t even know what the frame number was at this point).

The parts seem to be a mix of Campagnolo Athena, Chorus and Record, but they aren’t what I want on this bike, so these parts will eventually be sold via the charity eBay account, with the proceeds also coming back into the charity.

My Initial Phone Images

Once I had paid for the bike, I took a few basic images while still at work using my phone. This was just to document and check a few items such as frame ends, frame numbers etc.

The first thing I noted was that the number on the fork column matched the frame. It has a mis-match of ends with Gipiemme frame ends and Raleigh fork ends. Other features that differ to standard SB frames are the seat stay attachment, the brake bridge, the type of front derailleur fitting, style of race number tab, the top tube brake cable routing and the lack of chain stay bridge.

Better Images

I eventually took some better images yesterday with my DSLR. I’ve not worked on the bike yet, so these images are only covering what I already have. I just like to have better quality, higher definition images.

Overall it’s in quite good condition. Some of the chrome on the parts and fittings is rusted – but that is fine as these will be removed and sold. The frame has two areas of corrosion. The first is the BB/down tube socket and the spoiler on the BB shell. The second is around the top head lug/top tube brake cable entry/number tab. However, these areas will clean up ok.

Here is the rest of the bike…

Basic Geometry

Some have mentioned that they thought the seat tube was quite ‘relaxed’, meaning a shallow ‘laid back’ seat angle. I normally do a full geometry check blog post when a bike is stripped, but so that I can answer this one question, I used my digital angle finder to check the seat tube angle.

There isn’t a size stamp on this frame, but it measures just short of 570mm centre to top. With the gauge set to zero on the top tube, the seat angle is 71.9 degrees, so definately ‘laid back’.

There will be a full geometry blog later.

SBW Frame Numbers

SBW numbers are a small enigma in the overall timeline of SB numbers.

The actual numerals on SB/SBW numbers run in sequence from SB1 up to just short of SB10000 – known frames range from 6 to 9963 (currently). However, in late 1989? a small amount of SBW frames appeared.

To add a bit more confusion, the numeric figures run in the right numbering sequence but there isn’t an exact defined gap of SB numbers where it goes SB, SB, ‘SBW’, SB, SB… there is a mix like SB, SB, ‘SBW’, SB, ‘SBW’, SB.

I’ve only seen five SBW numbered frames, mine included in that count, and there is no readable set of frame parts and styles in use across these SBW frames. There are different brake bridges, different seat stay attachments, different chain stay bridges, lugs, brake cable routing and frame ends. Because of the lack of frames in this number range, it’s difficult to say if there were only a handful of SBWs or if there were a couple of hundred. The frames I’m aware of appeared at approx SB9100’ish and were gone sometime between SB9269 and SB9400’ish based on the limited data I have.

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And that is all for now. That is as much as I’ve had time to do over the last two months. I wanted to get this bike at least logged on my blog before the year end!

But there will definately be more to come from SBW9262.

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