My new-old bike

I have been looking for a commuter bike since we moved to Austin. I can't leave my carbon road bike locked up outside a store, it would disappear in a heartbeat. I also can't put panniers or anything on it to carry things. So my carbon road bike is like a fast, expensive sports car, and the commuter bike will be like an SUV.Jeff and I have been talking about and looking at almost every bike in his store as a possibility for my commuter bike. But none of them seemed right for me. Someone gave this beat up old road bike to the shop the other day and Doug McAfee suggested to Jeff that it could work as my commuter bike. Jeff showed me pictures of similar bikes and I kinda liked it. I brought it home and rode it around the neighborhood a little and I think I like it.

This bike is a project bike, parts of it are a little beat up, but it has potential. It's a Raleigh Super Record made in Japan in the early 80's. It's a lady's mixte style frame, which means the top tube is actually 2 tubes that go from the stem, past the seat tube, and onto the rear fork, so it has 3 sets of rear stays, instead of two.

It's an interesting bike because there weren't many Raleighs made in Japan and apparently the Super Record was only made in Japan so there isn't a lot of information about them. I'd like to find a picture and specs of what this bike originally looked like.

Head badge with lines instead of where it was made, indicating it was made in Japan

It has these friction shifters on the stem, we'll see if I like them or if I decide to go with something else.

So this will be a fun bike to ride around town, and it will be fun to decide how I want it to look and ride and fix it up over time. Jeff is also pretty excited about this being our old classic project bike to work on.