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ffm
I saw someone suggest a Raleigh Royal appreciation thread and I thought; "What a good idea" and did nothing about it. Nice to see it come to fruition.
The Royal seems to be rather undervalued for a handbuilt frame in full Reynolds 531ST. Prices have yet to start climbing the way Randonneurs have.
I have had a few Royals, Randonneurs and an 8807. I thought the Royal was the same as the Randonneur but without the spoke holder on the chainstay. However, the Randonneur and 8807 takes a 27.0 seatpost, while the canti-braked Royals take a 27.2.
Lots of internet searching has done nothing to explain this. I have seen it suggested that Reynolds 531ST frames take a 27.2 if they are silver soldered and a 27.0 if they are brazed. Even if this is true, why would Raleigh use silver solder for the Royal and braze for the Randonneur?
Kuromori's page on Reynolds 531 (which goes into exhaustive detail) shows the earlier Special Tourist tubing as just having a thicker downtube, while the Super Tourist used on the Royal and Randonneur having thicker walls on all the main triangle. So, does the Royal have a thinner walled seat tube and possibly top tube? I can't even compare the ride of the two because I have never owned them at the same time.