I’m cleaning out the shed at my mum’s place and there are 3 bikes in there – one a Trek seemingly made out of depleted uranium:

But there is also his early 80’s Raleigh Royal 531 tourer – at the time it was a fairly expensive bike and it seems to be substantially in original if not in great condition:

[img]https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7769/17424221914_133395a472_b.jpg[/img]

and a GT Pantera that I *think* is from the early 90’s – I know that it originally had rigid forks – they are around and about somewhere but it was upgraded to suspension forks probably around 2001/2002.

I was wondering if anyone could give definite years for either of the bikes and if the Raleigh in particular was likely to be worth anything – it is likely to have been a bit of a dream bike for anyone who was into cycling back in the day.

There’s a whole bunch more photos here: clicky!

STX RC was good stuff in its day.

Not 100% but think that Pantera is more like mid than early 90s

Here’s the Royal

A good one would fetch a couple of hundred, maybe more as we enter Eroica season…

Thanks for that flap_jack – that’s the fella. It seems that my brother’s has a different rear dérailleur – branded Suntour rather than Raleigh.

EDIT: scrap that last bit – I’ve just found the specifications from 1983:

clicky!

Mate of mine rides one of those Raleigh’s. Nearly stock bar rims, pedals and a wide, noseless saddle. Lovely comfy tourer, he’s been all over Europe on it.

It’s almost certainly the angle of the photograph but the forks on the Raleigh look bent backwards.

And yes, the GT is mid to late 90s.

The forks look bent on the Raleigh.

My girlfriend at college bought one, must have been about 1984ish, they were great touring bikes if over geared.

A friend had the earlier all green one, we toured over the Alps, with a 42×34 smallest gear, panniers, saddle bag and bar bag. He was racing as a junior for Scotland at the time, he left some astonished riders on lightweight unladen bikes eating his dust.

I doubt you’ll get an exact year on the Raleigh because they didn’t change the models/paint jobs annually. I had one in perhaps 1989 which was a similar model to the pic. I think I got a deal on it because it had sat for a year or so in the bike shop

The exact year of the Raleigh will be indicated by the serial number stamped under the bottom bracket.

It should start with a ‘W’, which indicates it was either made in Worksop, or in the part of the Nottingham factory that the Worksop group moved to.

The next is a letter that indicates the month of manufacture (A = January, B = February etc, although I have seen ‘P’ which sort of contradicts this)

The next is a number which is the last digit of the year. You do have to know the decade though, but the groupset should help there. The kit looks very like the stuff on my wife’s one which is 1982.

We’ve got very into vintage bikes in the last year and we’ve bought 4 Raleighs from this era recently. From the catalogue, we’ve got a Royal, a Record Ace, a Road Ace and a Competition.
Check the welds carefully, the Record Ace failed at the seat-stay seat-tube junction recently after some enthusiastic commuting. Up side was that the LBS rebrazed it and it’s back into service.

The forks look OK to me inasmuch as they always seem to look bent like that.

Pantera looks like 93-95

If the Pantera is like my Zaskar from that era it will have the date of manufacture stamped into the frame near the one of the dropouts. Mine says 8/95.

Amazingly, we’ve also got one of those uranium Treks, which is my wife’s ‘leave at the train station’ bike. So far, indestructible.

We’ve got very into vintage bikes in the last year and we’ve bought 4 Raleighs from this era recently

Hey, I was in my teens when these bikes were made. Don’t you dare call them vintage! (It’s like it was yesterday, oh those endless summer days of my youth….. Spends rest of day in reverie..) 😆

I was in my twenties, completely out of my financial reach then. The Road Ace, particularly, rides like a dream.

Interesting stuff about that Suntour groupset. Apparently it was up there with the Dura-Ace of its day..

Link

The pantera is 1997. I’m almost 100% sure on this – I had a GT Talera of the same year and they share the graphics. Let me know if you’re selling.

Ps I agree re the forks – I think GT were all RockShox in 1997 and those forks look a bit newer to me.

Suntour stuff goes for reasonable money on ebay. Suntour rear mechs from late 70s look like modern ones. Campag and Shimano from that era look archaic.