Raleigh Sprite 5 Speed Continues

With rainy weather, I have some time away from riding to do work on the Raleigh Sprite in the shed. Tonight I trued the wheels and mounted rim strips, tubes, and tires. These tires are the basic, Duro white walls from Thailand. The production quality likely is less than that of the old Dunlop tires that came with the bike, but they are fresh and in much better condition.

A new facet of this project is rubber restoration. I normally just clean up the rubber parts. In this case, I am soaking the Dare/Raleigh grips in a mixture of alcohol and Oil of Wintergreen. The bath should have a softening and restorative effect on the grips. They were not in bad shape as they arrived, but were a little hard. This will hopefully soften them nicely before I put them back on the handlebars.

The next step is to start reassembling the bike.