Raleigh Alyeska seatstay repairs

[jon_norstog]

I was recently contacted by a man from idaho Falls who said he had a pair of Raleigh Alyeska touring bikes, both of them broken at the seat cluster. He asked if I could repair them and how much it would cost ... I said the best thing would be to take a look.

He brought them in at 9 this morning. Two nice bikes, about 1986 vintage, with balckburn racks and a lot of equipment upgrades. Both the same size, about 56 cm. Both broken the same way.

The seatstays are baloney-sliced and capped, with a very small amount of the stay tip brazed to the seat lug. After a few years of vigorous riding, both stays on both bikes were cracked right below the end of the braze securing them to the lug.

This is pretty clearly a design flaw - Raleigh should have put more metal into that joint, perhaps by doing a wraparound a-la the International.

What I did with the frames was make reinforcement gussets out of bias-sliced 3/4" x .035" cro-moly tubing. I call them "jake plates," after Jake, a one-time client of mine who broke **everything** I could build for him. I cut the stays loose and slipped the jake plates under and around the stays, then brazed them up. If I get in some shop time tomorrow I'll
clean them up and get them ready for primer. I'll try to post pictures of the finished repair.

I expect the repairs will last the clients the rest of their lives. And perhaps they will come back for custom touring frames.

jn


"Thursday"

[Dave Anderson]

Hi Jon,

Sounds like a cool solution. Would def be interested in seeing the photos.

Thanks,

Dave

[Scheisserad61]

I worked for a Raleigh dealer back in 86/87, around the time when the English company sold the U.S. rights to it's name to, of all companies, Huffy.

The "Ruffy" bikes were made in Taiwan or China, or more likely the Black Hole of Calcutta. The "quality" of the frames was abysmal, although it was a tough call as to which was worse : the "Raleigh" branded components or the frames. It was the era of when production was moving out of Japan and into new cheaper-labor areas and it showed.

Good of you to take those bikes in and give em' a shot in the arm.

[EricKeller]

Seems like Raleigh did this on purpose because it's a common flaw. I have seen a few production bikes with too little contact area, I have always assumed that someone got the wrong size tubes out of the bin and didn't care.

[jon_norstog]

raleigh_repair_2.jpgraleigh_repair_1.jpg

Here's what the repair looks like. I don't think they'll be able to break the bikes. I duidn't ruff up the bikes **too** bad!

jn


"Thursday"

[jon_norstog]

Well, I finished out the repair a while ago and hit it with a coat of black epoxy primer. Met the client yesterday at the BMX track in Idaho Falls. I was going up to race, so took the frames along and arranged a meet. He seemed happy with repairs and is talking about a frame for his daughter.

I have since noticed a bunch of Raleighs of that general vintage. Road bikes, mountain bikes, they all have that same detail! I'm guessing that the only surviving examples are the bikes that didn't get ridden much.

jn