I bought my Thorn Raven Sport Tour three years ago today and also completed 10000 miles on it today.

22nd September 2006

22nd September 2009. They've landscaped East Beach and the blue lamp post is no more. I picked what I thought was the nearest post to lean the bike against.


It's a magnificent bike. Solid, reliable, a great load-carrier, I've had few problems. The rear wheel was called in by Thorn because they didn't allow for the angle at which the spoke entered the rim on the rear wheel (huge Rohloff hub, relatively small wheel diameter) and spokes were breaking at the nipple end. They now use floating eyelets so that there is no lateral stress on the spoke. I replaced the suppled halogen light with Solidlights and I've added a front rack (Tubus Duo - I think much better than Thorn's own) which I've taken on tour.
The front tyre (Panaracer Pasela) is the original, but I've bought a new rim for the front wheel (Thorn changed the rear rim when they recalled the wheel) and will be fitting that soon.