This generous raleigh-phile, Neal, has a really impressive collection of old raleighs. Sports, Lentons, D's, competitions, etc. Ranging from the 30's until the 80's. His site is really worth checking out. My favorite one he had is the mindbendingly shiny 1966 Chrome Raleigh Sports he has. The chrome is nice and totally changes the character of the bike, from the flat black and pinstriped understated workhorse, to the blingy eye candy. Apparently these bikes were dealer sales incentives in the 60's. Wow! Check out all the photos on his page, but he also sent me this glamour shot, apparently it is nice enough that it lives in his living room:
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I got another email from Mark who directed me to his customized hot-rodded Sports over in cyclofiends gallery. Here is a photo I stole from the page:
click for source.
Pretty neat bike. I really like the red rims, bars and cranks with the flat black frame. So hot-rod. That is roughly what I had in mind for my sport, but a bit more stock. I am planning on using a similar bendix 2speed coaster brake hub and some 584 rims with fatty rumpkins on them for some fat multi surface tires that hopefully ride better than the 590's that are easily available.
I was just looking at some car show pictures last week and wondering why the clean flat black and red look has not been done that often on bikes. There has to be ways to include the hot rod look without making dumb looking lowriders and chopper cruisers.
click for source at coops blog.
The pinstriping and boxlining and flamboyant paint jobs on the british bikes seem to be the right idea, but a bit of customization from there you could have some nice hot rod bikes. There is some good stuff on the venerable bikerod and custom webpage, but lots of crap. OC chopper style bikes are not the droids I am looking for, but this and this are steps in the right direction.
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