1948 Raleigh Sports Tourist - Model 23

Good weather to start this week, but that is supposed to last only a couple of days. The lawn mowers are back out and about. I love the smell of freshly cut grass... 

 

Here is one of the bikes I re-built over the winter - a 1948 Raleigh Sports Tourist. This bike combines the Sports frame, 26 inch wheels, and cable brakes with the "Tourist" elements of a chain case, front dynohub, and light set.  The bike appears as "Model 23" in the catalogue.

 

The Model 23 Sports Tourist is very much a "commuter" type bike. It is better-equipped than the basic Model 35 budget Sports, or even the moderately-equipped Sports Light Roadster (Model 22). 

 

This bike is on the heavy side to be a "road" or a "sporty" type bike. It offered the commuter a weather-resistant bicycle that could be ridden to work or class in regular clothing. This bike is aimed at the short or medium length trip to work, class, shop, or the post office.  

 

The bike was available with the old-style, long-arm "trigger"/"flick" shifter, or  the top tube "quadrant" style shifter. For now, I have a good, old quadrant on the bike. I may try converting it to a refurbished long-arm trigger shifter in the future, but for now the quadrant is there and gives good shifting.

 

One of the challenges of these bikes are the old, cloth-covered cable housings. These housings love to dry out and crack. If you're lucky, the are simple, small cracks where the cables take a turn. If you're unlucky, the housing will begin to fray, leaving a mess. If the covers are particularly bad, I replace the whole cable assembly with something newer. But if they can be saved, I use black-colored heat shrink (available online) to bandage the larger cracks. The sections on the bike where you see larger cable covers are the heat shrink "bandages" on the covers. They blend in reasonably well, though they do make the cover look a bit bigger in those areas.

Raleigh pattern cables are fixed-length and not meant to be disassembled. I lubricate them by hanging them up and dropping some Tri-Flow lubricant down the cable cores. Tri-Flow is a thin oil with a teflon component. It helps lubricate old brake cables that need to stay intact.  

This bike has the old-style Sports lamp bracket on the handle bar stem and the old-style, glass lens headlight. The tail light is a bit later type, the original being totally missing when I got the bike. 

 The lighting is still the old-style, incandescent type. I prefer LED lights because they give you the most lighting you can squeeze out of the low-output GH6 hub. But given the age of this bike and the very old-style, glass lens headlight, I stuck with original lighting. This bike will not be ridden at night. 

The headbadge is the original, old-style Raleigh type. It has some wear on it. I suspect the bike may have had a front basket for awhile, which may have rubbed a bit on the lower part of the badge.  

When I cleaned the mechanical areas and bearing surfaces, I found this bike probably did not have many miles on it... or else it was very well-maintained. The bearing surfaces were smooth, with very little wear. 

There are still a few things to consider on this bike. The 1947-48 catalogue shows this bike's standard shifter as the old-style, long-arm shifter, with a cloth-covered shifter cable. I may do that eventually. The top tube quadrant was an option for a more traditional set up. The quadrant is lower-maintenance and easier to fit. (See my article on refurbishing the finicky, early flick shifters). Going to the flick shifter will also mean finding a length of good, cloth-covered shifter cable (not easy). I probably have some of that in a bin somewhere around here... We will see if I make the return to catalogue "standard"...

 

I also need to play a bit with the saddle height. I have the bike set up as an upright commuter, with the bars a bit higher than the saddle. I think that works well for this bike, but I may need to raise the saddle just a bit. I can see why these bikes were such popular machines for the short or medium length trip to the office or college campus. It would make a very comfortable commuter. I find my more spartan Raleigh 35 better for longer trips over the road or in hilly country. 

Without further delays, here are the specs:

• 23-inch men's frame
• 26 x 1 3/8 wheels with Westrick Raleigh Pattern rims and stainless "R"-stamp Raleigh spokes
• Michelin World Tour tires, Schwalbe tubes 
• 1948 Sturmey Archer AW rear hub
• 1947 Sturmey Archer GH6 front hub ("black side", pre-1951 type)
• Original, cloth-covered cable housings
• Original chain case with all the various sliders, clips, etc. 
• Incandescent bulb lighting - I did not convert this bike to LED. 
• Brooks B66 saddle
• Raleigh industries pedals with "spurs"
• 48-tooth chainring, 22-tooth rear cog 
• Acorn saddle bag 
• Lucas bell