One Man's Trash- Revisited

I forgot to mention that I spent my Friday evening swapping tires around the three commuter bikes in the basement. My training wheels for my Look have used the same Vittoria Rubino Pro Slicks for, well, a long time, and the rear was completely squared off. While I have more racing tires than I know what to do with, I don't have that many decent foldable tires for training, so I tossed a Vittoria Action HSD on the rear. This prompted me to inspect all my tires. My main commuter still had a Vittoria Open Corsa CX- which is far to fragile for commuting, although to date it has been impervious to flatting. It was thoroughly squared off. I tossed a cheapo Continental 2000 wire bead tire on the rear. My wife's commuter, which has yet to make the trip as a commuter since she still rides her road bike, had a beautiful set of Pariba Pro Course handmade tires. She's had good luck with them, but is a bit nervous about changing the rear if she flats, since it requires the wrench. I swapped an Armadillo off the front of one of the commuter tires, leaving me the other on the rear of my rain bike. If I get the Paribas off altogether, I'll have a tire shortage.

But that is not the point of this post. I had offered to give a friend the Raleigh Carlton that I rescued from a freeway overpass last autumn. This bike was stripped of every part that wasn't galvanically bonded on. I managed to drag it home and liberate most of the remaining parts. To be fair, this required some use of a hacksaw and Dremel, but I still couldn't free the seatpost. The fork was bent beyond repair, but I kept it for reference to locate a replacement with a suitable steerer. The tubing is Reynolds 531, and it has a 120mm rear. It isn't exactly a new bike. The paint was oxidized, but it had no dents and no rust. It was sized like a 58 cm frame, but it had the longest headtube I've ever seen on a non-custom bike.

I abandoned the project after I located the Schwinn frameset. I offered the Raleigh to a friend who also rides fixed. He finally came around to pick it up last night. Hopefully it will be reincarnated.