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I searched around on the line and found almost nothing of these bikes, 2 others in existence, one in original colours, restored and one painted an apple green. Some more general searches revealed another bike, painted pink, exactly the same frame but called Carlton.
I looked around a bit at this and found the frame to be a Carlton Courette and that Cliff Pratt was a family bike shop in Hull, I assume they branded the bike with their own name in the 60s. I hadn't realised that Carlton became Raleigh when it was bought in the early 70s.
But anyway, now I knew what the bike actually is and I was able to find plenty more examples for inspiration
(Pardon my ignorance if all this is obvious, I don't know much about older bikes) -
A few days ago I started stripping her ready for paint
I took out the headset which I thought would need replacing because the forks turned so stiff but after removing it, it all seems in quite good condition, I think it was just tightened up too much
This gave me chance to get the headtube badge from the front, I just positioned a flat head screwdriver behind the small rivets inside the headtube and tapped with the hammer, the metal of the rivets is very soft and comes right away.
The other bolts are from the dropouts, for a rack I assume, and the C seat post bolt
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So then, the day before last, I went to B&Q, picked up some cheap paint remover for £2, I was sceptical but got home and started slapping it on.
My girlfriend helping out
This is what it looked like after an hour or two
A little longer and it was like this
And then, after brushing the old paint off and starting the sanding it looked like this
You can see it was a bit rusty under the paint but its only surface rust and it'll sand out
The forks still need sanding, the stripper took them back to what looks like primer
I do some of the work, honest.
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Pictures resized, hopefully it works now! thanks!
She won't have drops, she wants to sit more upright and geometry wise its already going to be difficult, I'll get her either a set of risers or something more swept back. The stem is going to be the main thing to get right. I need something long in height but with a short forward reach.
Most of the parts on this are going to be new, nothing is going to be very expensive, no phil wood or anything. But I still want it to be of good quality. It's going to be slow building it up once I start the buying.
The bike is going to be a light pink with probably all white parts. -
Been visiting my girlfriend in Italy for the last three weeks so no more progress as of yet apart from ideas wise.
I have now realised my spraying skills are probably not up for this job so I'm planning on having it powdercoated a light pink at Armourtex or similar. Maybe a subtle flake so as from a distance it just looks shiny but close up its glittery. She loves shit like that.I need some advice on an idea though.
A rear brake would normally on a frame like this, be positioned on the upper or middle(?) seat stays. But I want to keep it as minimal and simple looking as possible so don't want wires etc all over the place.
Would it be possible to position a brake beneath the chain stays if I drilled the little cross support thingy? Is there a reason it isn't done on other bikes?
I figured, if theres enough room, the brake would be hidden behind the crank and would look pretty unique anyway.
Thoughts and advice wanted. Go easy on me if I'm being stupid! -
Me and HPx93 talked about it last night. I'm just worried as she's only ever ridden very conventional ladies bikes before and I wouldn't want to give her a coaster brake to rely on and in an emergency she forgets or can't do it. Its not a natural reaction to suddenly pedal backwards.
Something else we talked about is running both front and rear brakes from one lever. How reliable is that?
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Has anybody ever used one of these?
I know most of you are going to hate it, I don't think it looks too bad to be honest
but its about the shortest quill stem out there
Its a raleigh 40mm
Its short so she'll be in a nice upright seated position like she wants and its also just over a tenner. Just wondering if its worth it though?
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Why not? You could also use handlebars with a little backsweep like the velo orange porteur or a moustache? Those would look lovely on a mixte.
Thats the plan. I'm still looking for the right bars though. I want something swept back but not so much that the gripping area is 90 degrees to the frame if you know what I mean, hands facing inwards instead of forwards.
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Progress on this has been very slow as I was an unemployed student for the recent past but I have a job now and progress should pick up and hopefully be finished around january or february.
Small update though, a while back I bought an old Sugino crankset from Luckyskull. I bought it because it was odd looking, 3 arm design and 171mm.
I've had it sat around for so long now and it was really quite pitted and I'd recently decided to sell it on and buy a cheap crankset new just so it looks a bit cleaner.
But I've just started cleaning it to take photos and its actually coming up really nice so I'm possibly gonna keep it. I'll post a pic soon. -
Lovely project.
Just a fix on the history bit. Carlton didn't change its name to Raleigh.
Raleigh bought the Carlton brand and factories to manufacture its high end frames.
Later on they killed the Carlton brand as it was predating their own, but not before switching the production to more low end frames.
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About
Carlton Mixte Project
Posted by
@PhilDAS
So couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend said she wanted a bike, just something to get around on, to uni and back etc.
She obviously wanted some big, heavy, slow, comfortable thing but I wasn't having that so I showed her as many pink and pretty Mixtes as I could find and thankfully she liked them so the hunt for a frame started.
Last week Errol messaged me with a Cliff Pratt frame he had and I picked it up a few days later from him.
This was the day I picked it up, the paint was tatty but the frame and lugs were really nice as a whole.