Raleigh Marathon

That's my bike. That's what I have decided to ride on the road. It's old. Very old. It's heavy. Very Heavy. But it's paid for, had a lot of family history in it and is, most of all, perfectly functional! And it's beautiful. It has sport touring geometry!
[IMG]http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff57/noreasterDL/Bicycles/Raleigh7-10050.jpg[/IMG]

I don't know what that means. I found a .jpg of an old catalog a while ago and the Marathon is near the top of Raleigh's non-competitive "10-Speed" line from back in the day. "The Day" is the Eighties. This is NOT from the Eighties:


This is from the sixties and it was on every bicycle that my father in law has owned since then. He has never struck me as much as a cyclist, but I guess that was a mistaken preconception on my part.

I rode it a little bit last fall when it first cam into my hands and I liked it. I was riding my Peugeot on the road at the time despite the fact that it really is too small for me, no mater how much I wish that weren't true. For this year I put a little rack on the Marathon. It's designed for a MTB but fits over the top of the 27 inch wheels of the Marathon with very little clearance but it's nice and level. I don't think that a fender would fit in there but I don't have any fenders for it (yet) so that is not an issue (yet). What I DO have is a Triumph 3-Speed with a flat tire. Upon closer inspection I found that the valve stem is ripped away from the body of the tube. No sweat right? Well, it looks like the tire is also "sliced" at another location so now I ahve to source a 26 1 3/8 tire from.......wait a minuet. I bought some 26inch tires last year that did NOT fit my mountain bike..... Hey! they are the right size! They are gum-wall cyclocross looking things but they are on hand and will go on as soon as I get a new tube or two, which isn't on the front burner since I'm going to be riding the Raleigh Marathon exclusevly on the road this year. Right.