1930 Raleigh Model Superbe X Frame (Green, Unrestored)

 PREV  ITEM 32 / 52  NEXT 

BACK TO START

 

THE ROAD WHICH HAS NO ENDING…

It is the road that matters – the old Road – the only Road – the one true Road of Heart’s Desire. For I believe profoundly in the dictum of Robert Louis Stevenson, that it is the journey, and not what we find at the journey’s end, which brings us real happiness.

Do you say there are many roads? I reply that there is but one.

The road through the Trossachs, the road to Betts-y-Coed, the road to Newlands Corner, the road by Wharfs-side to Bolton Abbey, the road through the Isle of Oxney to Rye, the road to Dedham and Flatford Mill, the road over Dartmoor, the road to Killarney, the road to Miller’s Dale: these are not different roads, but merely stages of one Great Gay Road.

And this road is not confined to the British Isles; it stretches beyond the utmost limits of her far-flung Colonies and Dominions to embrace all the wide spaces of the world.

I grant there are different methods of traversing it …but for me one method is as much too slow as another is too fast. I cannot taste the true glamour of the road as a pedestrian, choked by the fumes of tar. Nor can I taste it as one of a packed line of impatient car drivers, hot and cross because an inoffensive old cow has seen fit to meander across the road and hold up traffic.

So just as there is only one real Road, so there is only one true way of tasting its joys to the full, and that – need I say it? Do you not know it? is through the bicycle.

– 1930 Raleigh Catalogue

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green

1930 Raleigh Gent’s Model Superbe X Frame

Green Enamel

Unrestored, with much of its original 22ct gold lining intact

Sturmey-Archer ‘Model AB’ Three-Speed Hub Brake (Dated December, 1949)

Full Lighting Set

Raleigh Pedals

24″ Frame

28″ Wheels

Frame No G84702

(Now sold)

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 02

This X Frame is cosmetically original and unrestored, with faded first paint, box lining and transfers (decals).

It retains its Raleigh transfer on the headstock; the one on the rear mudguard is only an outline. The Raleigh name has been polished off the chaincase, but the ’22 ct Gold’ transfer above it has survived intact. It also, unusually, retains the lettering on the down tube that states: ‘THE ALL STEEL BICYCLE’ and most of the ornate gold lining graphics.

The rear mudguard stays are missing, but I have some so I’ll replace them. It’s fitted with a ‘Kirmer’ saddle (made by Kirk & Merrifield) which is worn, but usable. It has matching Raleigh block pedals.

By 1930 Raleigh had started using chrome, and fitting new Heron badges. But they still had a lot of unused stock, and this one has the older style head transfer. The Sturmey-Archer Three-Speed Hub Brake has been replaced with a 1949 one; I find this quite often – the postwar ones were more reliable.

This machine is a rare survivor and, with a little tidying, will be a good-looking bicycle.

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 04

 

 

 

 

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 01

1930 RALEIGH CATALOGUE

 

 

 

 

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 01

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 01

1930 RALEIGH CATALOGUE

 

 

 

 

 

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 01

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1930 RALEIGH X Frame Green 1

 

1930 RALEIGH X Frame Green 2

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 01

 KIRMER ‘MODEL 24’ GENT’S FULL ROADSTER SADDLE

kirker saddle

1935_Raleigh_Irish_X_Frame_76

1930 Raleigh X Frame Green 01