Neil McGowranWhat do you call it? Do you say Rear Derailleur, Rear Mech, Rear Mechanism, ‘Mech’ or just ‘Gears’… they are all names to describe the…
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I currently have six or seven or maybe even eight or more projects and builds happening at the moment. But lots of projects means lots…
It’s just over six years since I fastened the first component to this frame and four or five years since I completed the first build…
The year was 1984. I was only 14 and riding a beat up Raleigh Grifter around the estate. My parent’s shed was my workshop and…
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything about this bike. SB4059 is my original bike, number #1 in the collection, the bike that started…
Every new addition gets a good clean and although it was already looking quite good, SH377T still needed a bit of work. Wet oil and…
The process of purchasing SB3505 was super smooth… a late Friday evening email, additional images on the Saturday, deal done on the Sunday morning, packaged…
It’s been a busy week. Two SBDU frames have been received, unpacked, documented and blogged. SB1500 was intriguing, it didn’t need any clean up at…
Sometimes my plans for builds go smoothly and sometimes those plans stall and start to back up. I started the rebuild of SB1861 a little while…
Finding bikes built by the Specialist Bicycle Development Unit (SBDU) that aren’t what they appear to be is part of the appeal of bike hunting…
I’ve been itching to take this bike to pieces and to get my first good look at the detail of this frame and today was…
I thought I had moved away from using tubs, but I had second thoughts about them after I decided to rebuild the wheels on SB5794 with some…
It’s been a little while, but SB5794 is finally getting the wheels that it deserves! When I initially built this bike I just used the…
I’ve not got much to write in this post as the pictures will hopefully say everything. This Raleigh Banana has been an awesome bike to…
To say that I’m happy with how 2017 has started is an understatement! My first SBDU bike for the year is built and it is…
I’ve been collecting a few items for this build since getting my hands on the frame in December last year. It’s been a bit of…
This build is moving quickly! I found an amazing condition Dura-Ace 7400/7402 series group set from the late 1980s almost immediately after getting my hands…
Sometimes I don’t need to go searching for frames, sometimes frames find me. A few nights ago, a frame popped up on my screen, just…
All of the 50th Anniversary parts that I’ve carefully and patiently cleaned over the last couple of weeks have been re-united with the SBDU Ilkeston 753R…
I’m well on the way to getting every part of this build back to their very best. Part three was all about the components of…
Part three is here..! That means I finally get to work with the Campagnolo Super Record 50th Anniversary group. Part one was frame prep, the…
Part two of the build to restore SB6398… and all that frame prep in part one will pay off now when I fit the head set…
Here it is, the time has finally come… It’s time to build SB6398. The end result of this build will be a bike that is 100%…
Part two of the build for SB3800, a 1980 TI-Raleigh Team Pro 753; I don’t know if I prefer the first part of a build…
I have a few SBDU frames in the queue waiting for a rebuild. Time is just conspiring against me – It is the one factor that…
This bike has had a lot of attention on the Internet since I acquired it and I’m not surprised, it is a rather special machine.…
Is SB4059 ever going to be finished? The answer is probably no, but today I took another step closer when another piece of the puzzle…
There are just too many things to describe on this bike. I actually had trouble thinking of a shorter blog title! It is everything I…
This build is moving quickly at the moment which is remarkable for me! I’ve got a Shimano 600AX group that will complement this frame beautifully……
I’m frequently asked about the specification of TI-Raleigh’s team bikes. The most popular search terms I see on my blog stats and the most viewed…