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Thorn General / Re: Bike identification and valuation
« Last post by martinf on Today at 07:26:00 AM »
I was offered £400 to begin with, but when they found out it was an Alfine hub they weren't interested. Apparently the bike is worth in the region of £50 - £100, but I was told from someone on Facebook that it's still worth a lot more.

I consider that the Raven Sport Tour is a very good frame for a relatively lightweight hub-geared bike for light touring/day rides. My Raven Sport Tour cost about £400 as a frameset as discounted end of line stock in 2016. But it has the disadvantage of using 26 inch tyres that have gone out of fashion.

When selling something, the right price is what someone is willing to pay. The trouble with a hub-gear lightweight is that it is probably a very small market in the UK. A pragmatic approach would be to try and sell the bike for half the purchase price - I suppose that if it was bought a couple of years ago that it was second-hand ?

Where to advertise:

- On this forum.
- A touring bike website, this would have been the CTC when I lived in England, don't know if it is still called the same.
- Maybe EBay or the equivalent ?

As AndyB1 has already said, you will have more chance of selling if you are willing to send the bike, but packing and sending a complete bike is quite a hassle and is expensive.

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Thorn General / Re: Bike identification and valuation
« Last post by in4 on June 25, 2026, 08:42:12 PM »
Its a 486L size. Buyers can see the measurments on the Thorn website
Apologies I didn't see the photos as I was viewing on the phone whilst on the move.
best wishes
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Thorn General / Re: Bike identification and valuation
« Last post by MarkG on June 25, 2026, 08:23:19 PM »
Thanks for the replies. Very much appreciated.

Hey, Andyb1. Yeah, I am up in Dundee. I can pack it up if it need be. Thanks for that info regarding the prices. I gave the chain a good clean, but there are little scuffs and wear around the frame and seat.

Thanks for the kind words, in4; I'll pass them on :) Is that the same number as the one I posted in my photos, or is there another one I've missed? I did get in touch with SJS initially and you're right about them buying for a %.

I was offered £400 to begin with, but when they found out it was an Alfine hub they weren't interested. Apparently the bike is worth in the region of £50 - £100, but I was told from someone on Facebook that it's still worth a lot more.

Tbh, I really have no idea what price I should be aiming for.
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Thorn General / Re: Bike identification and valuation
« Last post by in4 on June 25, 2026, 09:03:02 AM »
Firstly all good wishes to your partner.
If you look beneath the bottom bracket you should see some numbers and letters stamped into the frame. That’s the frame size so very useful for any future buyer.
Might be worth emailing SJS cycles ( home of Thorn bikes) re realistic value. They do sell some used Thorn bikes on their website so ( for a %) they might sell yours for you.
Best wishes
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Thorn General / Re: Bike identification and valuation
« Last post by Andyb1 on June 25, 2026, 08:57:59 AM »
Hi Mark,
Welcome.
Assuming you are in UK?

I bought a similar Raven Tour with Rohloff last year and they seem to hold around £700 - £1000.   Many are advertised for more but don’t seem to sell.
Yours has Alfine gears so would be cheaper.
I have seen tidy Nomads with derailleur gears at £400 - and I sold my Sherpa for around that last year.  So I would guess £400 to start at if all checked over and tyres, chain etc are good.

Sadly you may get a lot less as the secondhand market is quiet and rim braked bikes are not popular with a lot of people.   If you are prepared to pack the bike up so it can be couriered that can make a big difference to getting a sale.
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Thorn General / Bike identification and valuation
« Last post by MarkG on June 24, 2026, 09:40:19 PM »
Hi forum,

My name's Mark and I'm new here. Nice to meet you all.

I'm looking for some information and guidance on a Thorn bicycle.

My partner bought this bike a couple of years ago and I'm unsure of exactly of all the details of the model and how much it's valued at. She broke her leg recently so we're looking to sell it on.

As far as I'm aware it's a Thorn Raven Sport small frame (17.5cm) Reynolds 853 Tubing, fitted with Shimano Alfine SG-S501 8-speed internal gear hub and Shimano V-Brakes, in good condition with only little bits of wear here and there.

If anyone has further details or corrections then I'd be extremely grateful.

I can upload more photos if need be.

Kind regards

Mark
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Rohloff Internal Hub Gears / Re: Twist grip VERY stiff
« Last post by Donerol on June 21, 2026, 06:37:14 PM »
Thanks - I’ll have a look tomorrow when I’ve got a bit more time.  I did use new, genuine Rohloff cables so I hope I haven’t done something daft that has chewed things up! I’ll let you know how I get on.
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Rohloff Internal Hub Gears / Re: Twist grip VERY stiff
« Last post by PH on June 21, 2026, 04:36:55 PM »
I've had this.  it's been a problem with the cables in the shifter being out of the grooves, or the nipples not property sat in their indents*.  You should be able to push the cables part out, as if you were changing them, to examine, if there's any roughness, change them.  If not, a smear of grease, push.pull back into place and see if that helps.  If the pulley itself has become chewed up, they're replaceable, at least for the light version of the shifter. It's been a few years since I changed one, can't remember how it stripped down, but I'm sure it was straightforward.
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/hub-spares/rohloff-cable-pulley-for-twistshifter-light-8194/

* I know people have had success with other makes of cables, but my experience has been that not all cables sit as neatly in these indents as the Rohloff specific ones or the SRAM ones SJS recommend.
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Rohloff Internal Hub Gears / Twist grip VERY stiff
« Last post by Donerol on June 21, 2026, 03:57:19 PM »
Fairly recently I bought a s/h Paul Hewitt with a Rohloff, internal mech, with cables routed along the top tube. The shifter was quite stiff at the time, and is now unusable. The hub cables move all right when I unclip them, but if I then pull on the cables to the shifter I can hardly move them at all. Do I need to buy a whole new shifter? When I bought the bike I fitted new (genuine Rohloff) cables to the shifter and things worked fine, but now I can’t use the bike at all.

I have used a Thorn Raven for a good ten years without any problems - it’s so old that it has the triangular shifter. These days however I find it too heavy to hang it up by the back wheel as required by some Scotrail trains. The Hewitt is much lighter and easier, so obviously I want to sort the problem.

Hope someone can help - thanks!

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If your point is that we would do well to lower our expectations of a machine that's described as intelligent, because intelligent people make public statements that are indefensibly inaccurate, ignorant or illogical, then it's a good point.
That#s pretty much my point, I haven't lowered my expectations, they were never that high to begin with.  I wouldn't assume a single source of information were correct, whatever the source.
 
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