A Farewell to my Tourists

Three years ago, I noticed that I wasn't riding my 1975 Raleigh Tourist very much, and briefly considered finding a new home for it. I decided against it at that time. When I moved to Pittsburgh in 2017, I left it at home with my parents in Michigan, only taking it out to ride when I visited home. Even then, it wasn't usually the bike I chose when I went to visit friends. After having spent two years away from the bike, I finally decided it was time to pass it on. 

Before the sale, I overhauled the bottom bracket and oiled the pedal bearings, which I had been meaning to do but never got around to. The bottom bracket bearings were in great shape, as expected, and did not show signs of wear or very much use. 

I rebuilt the rear wheel with the original hub for the sale and held onto the TCW coaster brake hub and some other expensive parts I added. This included the Dutch rear rack and generator lighting system. 

I did include the leather grips, the 1973 Brooks B72 saddle, the air pump, the Greenfield kickstand, the Crane brass bell, and the consumable parts in the sale. I packed the bike, which I found fit just fine in a Kona mountain bike box (with front wheel and handlebars disassembled and fork turned backwards, as usual). 

I decided around the same time, in fall 2019, that the 2018 Tourist was ready for a new home as well. It had changed back and forth between different mild iterations during the two years prior, and saw the the most use as a loaner bike when friends needed something nice to ride. Despite it being more "practical" as a whole than my classic 3-speeds, I failed to find a definitive place for it in my stable. 

Shortly after I bought the bike and wrote about it here, I bought a set of Continental Retro Ride tires. The tires were nice and had a reflective band on the sidewall, but due to the fact that they were 53mm wide, it was difficult to make them clear the fenders completely. In the summer of 2018, the front tire developed a tear in the sidewall where it encompasses the steel bead. I'm more willing to chalk this up to a rough installation on my part than a fault in manufacturing. The rims on this bike were technically a tubeless-compatible type even though they weren't advertised as such, and it was very difficult to get the steel-bead tires on. Pieces of the rubber surrounding the bead were being scraped off as I installed the tire. 

As a last attempt to make the bike more similar to the 1979 Superbe, I bought some 700x45c Vredestein tires, which fit under the stock fenders a lot better than the Continentals. 

I bought Sunlite silver alloy handlebars since I wasn't crazy about the copper ones. I swapped the original gooseneck-style stem for a 1-1/8" quill-threadless adapter and a shiny threadless stem just to improve the appearance of the bike and lower the bars. I also bought some leather ergo grips to match the brown saddle, and a thumb shifter for the RS-RF3 hub which I liked more than the stock twist-grip. 

I felt that the gear ratios of the bikes were remarkably similar, with the old Superbe having 46 teeth up front and a 20-tooth rear cog. The new Tourist was geared 44/20 if I remember correctly, but the larger 700c wheels made up for the reduced ratio. The day I took these photos, I rubbed a little bit of grime from the outside of the 1979 hub. The oil had indeed acted like a protective layer and the chrome was flawlessly shiny underneath. 

I was using a Planet Bike Eco rack on the old Superbe at this time, since I felt that the previously-fitted Pletscher was not quite cut out for my needs at the time. I bought an adjustable Sunlite touring rack for the new Tourist and felt that the curvy stays matched the curved chain stays of the newer bike. I also moved the rear reflector lower on the fender for a better look. I used the old holes to mount a new-style Raleigh headbadge. 

I had considered re-lacing the front rim with a disc-brake dynamo hub, but didn't get around to it. Besides, I didn't ride the new Tourist nearly enough to justify dropping another $100+ on a hub and new spokes. 

In the fall of 2018, I decided to experiment with using this bike as my winter commuter. The thought of having disc brakes and clearance for wide 700c tires in the winter was very appealing to me. I will take this chance to point out that these brakes in particular felt good, worked great, and did not squeak. I don't even think I finished bedding them in to the rotors, but they were great. Anyway, I took the fenders from the Stuntman, which was fenderless at the time due to having recently completed the Dirty Dozen, because the original steel fenders on the Tourist did not go low enough to provide much coverage. 

I also added my favorite Uno AL-030 handlebars, which were less swept-back and allowed me to pull on them to get up a hill. The thumb shifter was mounted on the left side, upside down, since I felt that was more comfortable than having it mounted above the bar. I later swapped the threadless stem and adapter back for the original stem. The leather saddle was also swapped for an Origin8 Sport Uno-S saddle, very similar to the Planet Bike Comfort Classic saddle that I had been using on different bikes for years. 

I rode the Tourist for a few weeks, carrying my computer and camera equipment between home, Carnegie Mellon, and Project RE_. The frame was stiff and handled the loads very well, but I noticed two severe issues ... one of which being that the Michelin Star Grip tires held onto rocks (so much so that one had worked its way in and punctured the tube), and the other being that the rear brake cable often froze up. The end of the housing ran slightly upward where it connected with the caliper, meaning that any water that fell over the brake during the ride or during a rainy day would enter the cable housing and then freeze up at night. 

The new Tourist regained its cream tires and factory fenders in late 2018. It spent a lot of time in Carnegie Mellon's east parking garage, under a motorcycle cover, before being loaned out during the spring of 2019. The Uno handlebars ended up on the 1969 Sports, which became the winter bike after the Tourist experiment failed. Despite being under the cover, the salty air inside the parking garage did get to the bike. The heron chainring, which was either raw or lightly-chromed steel, started rusting so I had to use the old WD-40 and aluminum foil trick to shine it back up. 

The eccentric bottom bracket started making a clicking noise while it was in its winter trim. Other people who bought this bike new had reported it loosening as well. I took the bike to a shop in the fall of 2019 where the issue was resolved. I probably should have learned how to do it myself to add to my arsenal of bike skills, but I did not have the time to spare at that point. 

For the sale, I left the rack, silver handlebars, cream tires, and Origin8 saddle on the bike. I returned the factory twist-grip shifter, seeing that the thumb trigger was so expensive and would not have added much value to the bike. The original brown tires were long gone, having been donated. In hindsight, I should have included the leather Raleigh-branded Gyes saddle with the sale. I thought it was cool, but don't see myself using it on any other builds. On the other hand, I do like the Origin8 saddles quite a bit and definitely would have used it on another bike. 

I listed both bikes at the same time in late 2019 and they were both snatched up within the following few months. The 1975 Tourist went to New York with a set of re-assembly instructions with photos that I took while packing. Due to there being very few, if any, DL-1 listings in the US in early 2020, I managed to get my full asking price and recoup the money I had spent on the bike over the years. I was sad to see it go, but was comforted when the new owner wrote to me, saying that he had longed for one for decades and finally had the opportunity to enjoy a rod brake roadster. 

The 2018 Tourist also went for my full asking price, despite several unsold, unassembled, new examples being listed for less. It was shipped to Miami, where the weather is warmer and the land is flatter. It was a lot of fun being able to learn about these bikes through experimentation. I may not have ridden either one very much, but thinking about their place in my stable allowed me to understand my own riding preferences better. I remember back when I had wanted one of the newer Danish-market Tourists, due to them having old-school frame geometry and modern drum brakes. I suppose Raleigh USA finally fulfilled my desire and created a Tourist for the American market, and I realized that no matter how much I love the idea of these bikes, I really do prefer something a bit faster that can keep up with traffic and go up hills. And maybe this is what the bulk of current bike commuters also feel about themselves - after I bought this bike at a deeply discounted price, the sale prices never came back up and the model was discontinued. Maybe someday, when slow-and-easy bike commuting finally becomes feasible in the US, bikes like these will finally be enjoyed outside of retro or vintage enthusiast groups.