What Raleigh road bike did my older brother have?

[raleighnut]

Hello, just wanted to ask a quick question. My brother gave me a Vitesse in spring this year and i've been riding it to work and back since (That's 34 miles a day). The bottom bracket started making some very nasty sounds last week and after googling a little I realise I've got to service it. My problem is, after removing the pedals and cranks, the wierd bottom bracket. I live in Germany and am not sure where I can get the tools for this job!
Any tips or tricks?
The locking ring came off easily with a pipe wrench ;-) And, yes I know there's a lot of other work to be done!
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Hopefully it's after Raleigh started using 'standard' (BSA) threading on their BB's, if not then hope the shaft isn't worn/pitted.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I used to have one of these when I was a yoof, thought it wad the best thing since sliced bread!.

To be fair the Shimano Biopace was a very good idea, strange how it's been phased out?.

I think Biopace was one of those bright ideas that were great in theory, but in practice just added to the cost of manufacture without delivering much (if any) benefit. There's also the issue that an oval chainring means front mech positioning doesn't have any room for error otherwise you won't get a clean/any gearchange between rings. I've got a couple of old Raleigh bikes still equipped with their original Biopace chainsets and in all honesty I do not find they work any better or feel any easier to pedal, than a conventional round chainring.
My feeling is that stuff like this is a bit of a marketing-driven gimmick, and should be treated as such, just like 1 x 11 drivetrains.

 

[Alan O]

I think Biopace was one of those bright ideas that were great in theory, but in practice just added to the cost of manufacture without delivering much (if any) benefit. There's also the issue that an oval chainring means front mech positioning doesn't have any room for error otherwise you won't get a clean/any gearchange between rings. I've got a couple of old Raleigh bikes still equipped with their original Biopace chainsets and in all honesty I do not find they work any better or feel any easier to pedal, than a conventional round chainring.
My feeling is that stuff like this is a bit of a marketing-driven gimmick, and should be treated as such, just like 1 x 11 drivetrains.

I have a different experience with a Biopace triple on my tourer, and I like it. It did need a bit of front derailleur tweaking to get the position right, but it changes across all three rings just fine (apart from one spell when it wouldn't always drop down to the small ring, but vigorous cleaning seemed to solve that, so I put it down to a bit of crud in the mechanism somewhere).

The benefits to me are that it feels smoother, I don't get any of the occasional "bouncing" that I used to get in low gears, and I find it easier on my knees. I've done one imperial century and a handful of metric ones with it this year, and the two things that never hurt are my knees and bum (the latter thanks to my Brooks Cambium).

I did try a Biopace double on another bike this year, but I abandoned that pretty quickly simply because it was too highly geared - and there don't seem to be any doubles with smaller rings.