This bike is a 56cm center to center Carlton Professional frame from the late 60s. Carlton was a high-end frame-building workshop that was purchased by Raleigh in 1960 and eventually took over all of Raleigh's high-end road builds.
This bicycle was manufactured by Carlton, under the Carlton name. Oddly enough, the Carlton name had too good a reputation for quality, and eventually the "powers that be" at Raleigh decided it was eclipsing the Raleigh brand and making it more difficult to sell Raleigh branded product. So, Raleigh stopped producing bikes under the Carlton name.
This sweet ride has a full Zeus groupo except the Sugino crank (it was probably considered an upgrade at the time, but now we would rather just have all Zeus components).
The Zeus components are highly regarded, and were basically a high-quality Campagnolo knock-off. They also made frames.
This bicycle is available for purchase. $1,200.
by John Wade
