My wife and I have got a flower shop which is now part bike shop... Been buying selling building / breaking bikes since a kid in the 80s .. I love all this old stuff and get a surprising amounts of it through the door.
I remember the stamping of postcode and house number was done during a nationwide campaign with the UK Police force around the early 1980s, lots of local bike shops were involved with this scheme. Really interesting to know the history of this bike. Will be great to see it back in its original colours.
@@Stuartrusty Yeh. I saw a comment liking it to a failed Banana scheme and did a bit of digging to see there may have been Avanti’s made in a Banana scheme but a VERY limited number. So... Banana
The decals currently on that are the fork decals from a Raleigh Banana. Not sure the GOD (Gerald Odonavan) oval decal should be on there. Given the colour scheme I reckon it was an attempt at doing a banana MTB gone wrong. They do exist, but quite rare.
It’s quite common for Raleigh to have made up special orders for customers based on personal requirements to bikes built in the lightweight unit in Worksop, this could have been a factory paint in banana colours. The 531 decal looks to be the original 1988 issue and not a repro. The group should be m730 18 speed xt and the mt-62 deore 2 is from 1989 and 21 speed so incorrect for the bike. Also the stem is from a 1989 bike (Cajun, chinook, ozark, thunder road or Appalachian, the 89 Avanti used a t bone type welded stem). In 1989 the lightweight bike production moved to Nottingham away from the god workshops (I have a 1989 531 team issue bike).
Nice Find. Looks like a classic ‘Station Bike’.... The black under seal/overspray would have disguised the lug work from a distance thereby making it a less desirable to any potential thieving DB!
I remember when I was a kid, being able to take your bike to the local Police station and they would stamp your post code on the bottom bracket part of your frame like that...good old fashioned community policing. You would get a sticker too!!
@@MonkeyShred yeah I remember that too, you could take video recorders to the cop shop and they would write on them for you...! Shame that type of community thing has now gone! Watched a youtube doc the other day about the amount of bike being stolen during lockdown following the increase in people taking up cycling...
Im About to get a raleigh discovery in white and blue. Original tyers and everything. Rust on the frame is my only concern. looking forward to seeing what you do.
Great vid! Looks like a back in the day stolen and repainted job. Hence the lack of any original colour. Very common on higher end bikes of the day. Even caught my neighbour stripping an respraying a frame back in 1989. We lived in a really nice are too!
Possibly stolen when it was only a year or so old, then entirely resprayed in yellow quite well complete with Reynolds stickers and decals from a different Raleigh (I think the Banana was a road bike). Then a later owner daubed and sprayed the black bits on.
@@MonkeyShred I'm sure its original owner would be happy to see it restored as you are doing. I guess you could even check with the police-- if he put his postcode on it they might have some record of it.
From what I could make out from the couple of images I could find Raleigh apparently used the Mistral font on all the Avanti decals. Maybe that helps :-) Great work as always!
I've been doing up an old Raleigh mtb recently and unless the previous owner changed the forks which seems unlikely unless they had matching paint-jobs . I think the earlier Raleigh Maverick also had the same forks, or at least they look remarkably similar
They did, yes. Or like you say very similar. From what I've seen though the Maverick Pro from 87 had front and rear canti brakes unlike the Avanti that had a rear U brake.
Just noticed from a quick eyeball of the 88 catalogue (presumably the same page on Flickr that you saw) that the shifters the Avanti appears to be specced with there are the earlier gen MT60s which are 6-speed rather than 7. Could just be a mistake/variation in the catalogue of course, but could also indicate those have been upgraded too or even that it's a different bike?
Bout to paint my 93 Raleight MT400 rsi.Technium. Needs a new groupset, fork, brakes, cables, bars, a stem thats not 6" long lmao. going to do blue duplicolor metalcast over glitter paint, with gold leaf decals, topped by 2k clear. You can get decals on EBAY btw.
Hi.. I think I may have a 1989 Avanti, which I got s/h around 1996 and which I've stripped and refurbed a few years back. The difference to yours is mine has rounded forks exactly like your vid (4th July 21 'Found A Handbuilt Reynolds 531 Vintage MTB On eBay - Venom Sabre').. It it has Diore XT and the biopace 48 chainset. It had the Reynolds 531 All Terrain square decal on the seat tube. Being a designer, I recreated the decal and the triangular reynolds decals for the forks (though I don't remember it having fork decals - I think I just did that to please myself). If you're still interested I will send you the files so in future you can get your own decals printed.. in return any identifiers to confirm mine is a 1989 Avanti or otherwise would be appreciated.. It has a serial number but apart from taking the new paint back, I can't make it out as its quite faint.
I encourage you to look into what happened to Raleigh in its dance of death with Tubular Investments (aka TI-Raleigh). A case study in how one of the great brands was undermined by greed and loss of confidence. Betrayal by the board of directors, happened a lot.
The stem and bar are almost certainly aftermarket upgrades. The original stem has a different form and doesn't have the pulley roller: www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=69655 The seatpost looks to be original but painted black. Wierdly it looks to me like the yellow is original (with the decals etc) with the black painted over the top. But searching the years around '88 I haven't seen a yellow one. It just seems bizarre that the yellow would be done so well and the black so badly...
Yeh I do find that confusing. I've scoured through and not find anything else that matches. The fork and U brake seemed to change in 89 so I definitely think it's a 88 bike (or before). I've noticed two other differences kit wise to from a standard Avanti. The paint to me seems a bit thin to be original. It does scratch off very easy when I compare it to that of the stem and bars
From the catalogues, no other model matches. The U brakes went away in 89 and the fork changed. There's nothing in there indicating other colours either but I've heard Raleigh did do special jobs....
How are you not yet sponsored by park tools. You make amazing builds. Thank you for the awesome content
Anyone supplying cleaning products, lubes or "consumables" that wants to support the channel? ;)
@@MonkeyShred you deserve it 100%
Классный велосипед. . Компоненты shimano deore. Super Video 👍
Спасибо
Love exploring the history behind an old bike.
Me too. It's great to track down all the the bits and bobs for it.
My wife and I have got a flower shop which is now part bike shop... Been buying selling building / breaking bikes since a kid in the 80s .. I love all this old stuff and get a surprising amounts of it through the door.
Prices are only going up
This is going to be a fantastic build !....531 frame should last a lifetime ,bike came apart so nice....that seat post is a thing of wonder.
Yes I like fluted seatposts
Oh yeh it's a really nice spec'd bike! The layback on the seatpost is...interesting!
I remember the stamping of postcode and house number was done during a nationwide campaign with the UK Police force around the early 1980s, lots of local bike shops were involved with this scheme. Really interesting to know the history of this bike.
Will be great to see it back in its original colours.
Original colours... about that...
@@MonkeyShred A change of mind? 🤔
@@Stuartrusty Yeh. I saw a comment liking it to a failed Banana scheme and did a bit of digging to see there may have been Avanti’s made in a Banana scheme but a VERY limited number. So... Banana
Maybe it was stolen years ago and then re sprayed?! 🧐
Interested to see the finished build, great vid!
The decals currently on that are the fork decals from a Raleigh Banana. Not sure the GOD (Gerald Odonavan) oval decal should be on there. Given the colour scheme I reckon it was an attempt at doing a banana MTB gone wrong. They do exist, but quite rare.
I like this idea!
It’s quite common for Raleigh to have made up special orders for customers based on personal requirements to bikes built in the lightweight unit in Worksop, this could have been a factory paint in banana colours. The 531 decal looks to be the original 1988 issue and not a repro. The group should be m730 18 speed xt and the mt-62 deore 2 is from 1989 and 21 speed so incorrect for the bike. Also the stem is from a 1989 bike (Cajun, chinook, ozark, thunder road or Appalachian, the 89 Avanti used a t bone type welded stem). In 1989 the lightweight bike production moved to Nottingham away from the god workshops (I have a 1989 531 team issue bike).
Nice that it came apart easy for a change 😎
It was a beaut to work on!
And that's why you always grease your threads,folks. I've never had a fixed cup come off that easy!
That was ridiculous! Very impressed
Nice Find. Looks like a classic ‘Station Bike’.... The black under seal/overspray would have disguised the lug work from a distance thereby making it a less desirable to any potential thieving DB!
I was going to say excellent mechanic, terrible painter, but your explanation makes more sense.
Ahhh that was a thing? Interesting!
@@MonkeyShred Still is!
I remember when I was a kid, being able to take your bike to the local Police station and they would stamp your post code on the bottom bracket part of your frame like that...good old fashioned community policing. You would get a sticker too!!
I vaguely remember some form of Police campaign like that too, but I think it was invisipens.
@@MonkeyShred yeah I remember that too, you could take video recorders to the cop shop and they would write on them for you...! Shame that type of community thing has now gone! Watched a youtube doc the other day about the amount of bike being stolen during lockdown following the increase in people taking up cycling...
@@alandow3532 oh yeh I bet! I’ve seen more bike shops being broken in to too.
cool, more road bikes and fixed gear content please
Maybe.
Супер видео
Im About to get a raleigh discovery in white and blue. Original tyers and everything. Rust on the frame is my only concern. looking forward to seeing what you do.
It's going to be interesting!
Great vid! Looks like a back in the day stolen and repainted job. Hence the lack of any original colour. Very common on higher end bikes of the day. Even caught my neighbour stripping an respraying a frame back in 1989. We lived in a really nice are too!
Possibly stolen when it was only a year or so old, then entirely resprayed in yellow quite well complete with Reynolds stickers and decals from a different Raleigh (I think the Banana was a road bike). Then a later owner daubed and sprayed the black bits on.
Oh no, not another one! Maybe I should check for serial numbers! I didn't notice any on first inspection.
@@MonkeyShred I'm sure its original owner would be happy to see it restored as you are doing. I guess you could even check with the police-- if he put his postcode on it they might have some record of it.
Raleigh were known to use any bits and bobs after 85 especially on bmx bikes
Turns out this one should have had 105 road hubs too...
From what I could make out from the couple of images I could find Raleigh apparently used the Mistral font on all the Avanti decals. Maybe that helps :-) Great work as always!
Thanks! I actually might be going down a slightly different route with this now though....
I've been doing up an old Raleigh mtb recently and unless the previous owner changed the forks which seems unlikely unless they had matching paint-jobs . I think the earlier Raleigh Maverick also had the same forks, or at least they look remarkably similar
They did, yes. Or like you say very similar. From what I've seen though the Maverick Pro from 87 had front and rear canti brakes unlike the Avanti that had a rear U brake.
Just noticed from a quick eyeball of the 88 catalogue (presumably the same page on Flickr that you saw) that the shifters the Avanti appears to be specced with there are the earlier gen MT60s which are 6-speed rather than 7. Could just be a mistake/variation in the catalogue of course, but could also indicate those have been upgraded too or even that it's a different bike?
Yes I had a closer look too on the later pages where all the specs are listed. It should have the 6 speed but should also have 105 hubs.
yeah! 🙃
Bout to paint my 93 Raleight MT400 rsi.Technium. Needs a new groupset, fork, brakes, cables, bars, a stem thats not 6" long lmao.
going to do blue duplicolor metalcast over glitter paint, with gold leaf decals, topped by 2k clear. You can get decals on EBAY btw.
Not for the Avanti. Nothing around for that.
@@MonkeyShred Ya I can only find Raleigh ones. Nothing for the model.
My family has a sign business and vinyl plotter/ cutter so I'm lucky.
👍👍👍👍
I would love that bike, I would just spray it without decals, add a rack on the front and ride it everywhere.
It's going Team Banana style :)
Hi.. I think I may have a 1989 Avanti, which I got s/h around 1996 and which I've stripped and refurbed a few years back. The difference to yours is mine has rounded forks exactly like your vid (4th July 21 'Found A Handbuilt Reynolds 531 Vintage MTB On eBay - Venom Sabre').. It it has Diore XT and the biopace 48 chainset.
It had the Reynolds 531 All Terrain square decal on the seat tube. Being a designer, I recreated the decal and the triangular reynolds decals for the forks (though I don't remember it having fork decals - I think I just did that to please myself). If you're still interested I will send you the files so in future you can get your own decals printed.. in return any identifiers to confirm mine is a 1989 Avanti or otherwise would be appreciated.. It has a serial number but apart from taking the new paint back, I can't make it out as its quite faint.
That is your standard "I want my bike to be distinguishable to not be stolen-paintjobbe"
Who needs paint?
Interesting!
Google Raleigh Avanti loads of pictures there in blue and white. Good luck👍
Oh I know. I've searched multiple times, even before I bought the bike.
M.b.I. Mountain bike investigation 👮🏻♂️
To be fair, this was marketed as an ATB rather than as an MTB IIRC, but point taken.
MBI. Someone get on that merch!
This bike comes from when the Raleigh company was being sliced and diced. Maybe that's why I've never heard of the Avanti.
Maybe back then it was because Raleigh weren't known for their MTBs? Not that they're exactly known for their MTB's these days either.
I encourage you to look into what happened to Raleigh in its dance of death with Tubular Investments (aka TI-Raleigh). A case study in how one of the great brands was undermined by greed and loss of confidence. Betrayal by the board of directors, happened a lot.
I have the Raleigh ozark and avanti 531
The stem and bar are almost certainly aftermarket upgrades. The original stem has a different form and doesn't have the pulley roller: www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=69655
The seatpost looks to be original but painted black.
Wierdly it looks to me like the yellow is original (with the decals etc) with the black painted over the top. But searching the years around '88 I haven't seen a yellow one. It just seems bizarre that the yellow would be done so well and the black so badly...
Yeh I do find that confusing. I've scoured through and not find anything else that matches. The fork and U brake seemed to change in 89 so I definitely think it's a 88 bike (or before). I've noticed two other differences kit wise to from a standard Avanti.
The paint to me seems a bit thin to be original. It does scratch off very easy when I compare it to that of the stem and bars
I've sent you a link to a original catalogue on your page
I think the yellow is original. Meaning the model came in other colours, or it is another model.
From the catalogues, no other model matches. The U brakes went away in 89 and the fork changed. There's nothing in there indicating other colours either but I've heard Raleigh did do special jobs....
@@MonkeyShred Could it be a tour de france special since it is all yellow?
@@cccpkingu I’ve never seen a Tour De France Raleigh I think. Especially not a MTB.
Fyi, your eBay link in the description doesn't work
That's weird. The link I post is the exact link it shows in my profile.... but clicking the link doesn't work... weird.
H Lloyd Cycles probably have the decals.
They don't unfortunately.
Post it on retrobike, someone will have the decals
I did find a few posts from Retrobike but none that had decals that I saw.
Where's the supervisor?
In her bed!
What's your name on Instagram?
m0nkeyshred