Is is worth it to refurb this 10-speed Raleigh someone was throwing out?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Someone down the street put this bike out with the trash, and on the spur of the moment I brought it home.

Google Photos

I’m no bike expert, but it doesn’t seem to me to need a whole lot of work. It’s dirty, obviously needs new tires, but otherwise seems to be in decent condition. Tear it down, clean and lube the pieces, reassemble, buy and mount new tires, and off I go. I don’t think it needs new paint, so I’m not planning on doing that.

I haven’t owned a ten-speed in decades, and I don’t have any bike-specific tools, but I have a decent general tool set, and I’m reasonably handy. I’m not averse to buying new tools if necessary.

A few articles I’ve read say it’s not worth refurbing a bike like this, that it will cost about the same as buying a new bike, which will also be more technically advanced. But I’m not convinced that’s true. Especially since I’m not sure that I’ll really be getting into using the bike when I’m done.

My initial thought in grabbing it was, spend a few hours and a few bucks getting it into shape and see if I enjoy riding again at age 67. If so, great; if not, I won’t be out much.

Thoughts? Advice? Warnings?

2

Adam Savage on Tested recently did a bicycle refurb. He seem pleased with the results.

I would try the gears and brakes before putting any money into a old bike.

3

I subscribe to his channel, watch his stuff all the time, and yet somehow missed this. Thanks!

4

You can get an entire new bike (including tires) for about the same price as a couple of tires???

Enjoy your new free bicycle! Check that the brakes still work (replace the pads/cables if not).

Lennard Zinn also has a volume Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance

5

Bikes, like kayaks, tend to hold their value over time.

My gf decided to clean up our bikes this spring. She’d purchased hers new 20 years ago. I bought mine very used for $25 15 years ago. Both bikes have sat in the barn untouched for 5 years.

After lots of cleaning, she told me mine wasn’t worth fixing. She took both bikes to a local bike place, hers to be “tuned up”, mine to see if he could take it for parts.

Her bike cost $115 for a good overhaul. He took my bike for parts and gave me $25, exactly what I paid for it.

6

Worth it? As in, will you get the money you put in to it out of it? Definitely not.

Will it be a pleasant past-time that will give you a little more knowledge of how bicycles work, while ending up with a functional and nice- looking bike? Definitely.

I went through a phase of fixing up vintage bikes. I could never possibly recoup the money I spent on them, but immensely enjoyed the time spent. In dollars per hour of entertainment, it was cheaper than say, gong to a movie.

7

Do you have a youtube channel? If you refurb, go ahead and post it. Not to make money but refurbing channels are popular. I, for one, like to see the refurbishing where the person doesn’t have 10s of 1000s of dollars of professional equipment and learn how to do it themselves off of the interwebtubes.

8

How much do you value your life?

You are much more exposed on a bike than you are in a car. A mechanical failure could lead to getting hit by a car, or you could have an accident going fast downhill. I wouldn’t ride a piece of junk like that. It’s not just about “do the brakes work”. Do the brakes work well, as in can you modulate smoothly, or are they going to bite and cause you to crash? New tires aren’t going to stop the wheels from collapsing if you hit a pothole. That bike was cheap when it was new, and it is very old - I’d say ~40 years from the design and components.

If you saw a fairground ride like that, superficially “refurbed” or not, would you get on it?

I don’t want to discourage you from getting into riding a bike again, but this just seems like making things unnecessarily dangerous. It’s not like a decent mechanically sound bike is all that expensive.

9

Is it Steel or Aluminum framed?

10

You can see that it’s welded steel.

11

Not from that photo I can’t.

12

Ok, if you want to be pedantic I can see that it’s steel. Aluminum tubes would be thicker (larger cross section), and would not have lugs like that.

13

Before he died, my gf’s dad restored vintage bicycles (and cars as well). He loved it. He went to the trouble of tracking down pictures/drawings of the bicycle so he could match the color of the pinstripes.

My gf has the bike he restored for her, and I have his restored bike. We ride them each spring at a family get-together. There was a short human interest story about the ride one year when all nine bikes and their owners participated.

14

Steel frame, lugged and brazed, not welded. Not a bad frame.

But the corrosion on the rims and spokes are a concern. If you get it up and running, that’s what will cause problems next. Are the wheels true (that is, do they wobble side to side when spinning?) You can check that by seeing if they hit the brake pads when spinning the wheel. Are any of the spokes loose? If you can find a set of wheels to replace those that don’t cost much, then cleaning up the bike might be a fun project. New cables and housing, brake pads, tires and tubes, and a few hours cleaning the bearings and regreasing them is minor work you can do yourself, but keep the replacement of the wheels in mind, you’ll need to do that sooner or later.

15

It’s lugged, is it not?

Ninja-ed

16

Yes, I saw it’s was lugged and thus steel, and had just a brain fart when I wrote it the first time. The correct term for lugged construction is brazing, right?

17

Thanks for all the quick and informative replies!

No, the point of the piece I read was that these projects aren’t as cheap as you might expect, and predicted that the hypothetical project bike would need roughly $500 in new parts, tools, etc.

I hadn’t been thinking about getting a bike, new or otherwise. My hope, when I made the spur of the moment decision to take the bike home, was that fixing it up might be fairly easy and cheap. It would be nice to have a rideable bike without feeling I spent too much if I end up deciding I don’t want to get back into riding again.

That price point is probably in the neighborhood of $200. If fixing this bike is going to cost me $500 out of pocket, I’ll put it back out with the trash untouched.

One of the articles mentioned it. If I get into this, I’ll look into buying it.

No, not looking to make money, just hoping for a cheap ride.

Well, I spent 25+ years riding motorcycles, so I’m well aware of the risks of two-wheel travel. But the safety aspect is definitely on my mind. Fortunately, where I live now is a small community with low speed limits and little traffic. But I realize that if I eventually want to go further afield, riding will be more hazardous.

Yes, if this doesn’t work out, I could also look for a good used bike locally. But even that could entail a level of commitment to riding that I’m not sure I’m ready to make.

It’s a little hard to tell, but a quick spin of the front wheel looks pretty good; the rear wheel may be a little more iffy.

I’ll check that when I have a little more time. Thanks for the suggestions.

Before I dive into the rabbit hole of researching replacement parts, would anyone care to give me a ballpark estimate for a set of decent (not top-of-the-line) wheels and tires? (It looks like these wheels have a diameter of 25.5 inches.) If those items alone would get me near or over my $200 target, not counting new tools or other incidentals, that may make the decision for me.

Thanks again for all the replies.

18

Clever title!

19

My area has a really great FB swap/shop group. Not only is it a great place to get things like replacement rims inexpensively, folks tend to be really helpful as well. There are the expected Eeyores, but I’ve found them to be in the minority.

Without find any actual shopping at the moment, there’s no way you’ll put $500 in to that bike. Maybe 2.

20

The wheels are either 27" or 700c diameter. Probably 700c, but 27" was common on cheaper bikes back in the day. If you can read the size on the existing tires, that will tell you what the size is. And here is where you want to sort things out before you buy tires or get to far into the project, because the two sizes are close but not interchangeable. The front is fairly straightforward, all you are looking for is a solid axle front wheel with 100mm spacing. These are easy to find because most front wheels are 100mm. The rear is trickier because that wheel is likely 126mm spacing, and newer bikes changed to 130mm or 135mm spacing, though bolted axles probably are all 126mm, but I am not sure about that. The other issue is that you need a freewheel hub, and not the more modern cassette body hub. You will probably find what you need at a bike swap, a pawn shop, or a flea market. Or perhaps a bike shop, but you are looking for older wheels in good shape.

But don’t let that dissuade you, the wheels as they are will probably be good for a little while, at least long enough for you to decide if you want to keep the bike or not. You can get the bike fixed up for under $100, the tires will be the most expensive part. And I could also be wrong, those wheels may be fine, just a bit ugly.