Mike's Bikes
56cm Tange single-butted 1020 Hi-Tensile 1/.7 gauge frame. Current weight w/pedals: 24.2 pounds
Hand-cut & painted lugs on mail-order catalog bike. One thing to love about the 70s. The manufacturer remains a mystery, but similar lugs are seen on Centurions of the time. There is a "JAPAN" sticker on the seattube above the bottom bracket and serial# 9278565 (likely meaning 1978 manufacture) stamped adjacent on the downtube.
I scraped together $179 for this JC Penney catalog bike in the summer of 1979, then slowly spent three times that trying to turn it into one of those $700 Euro bikes I couldn't afford a few months earlier. Teenagers now do this with Civics, you know. It was originally equipped with Shimano Titleist/Selecta components (including centerpull brakes -- note the seatstay bridge) and weighed 28 pounds, but a season of mail-order deliveries later it was a 21-pound Pan-Euro mutt in sew-ups. I've recently re-porked it to 24.2 with some era-correct things. The Brooks saddle is half its current heft if my common core math skills are up to date.
Original components changed-out for: Universal 68 sidepull brakes; Brooks Pro Team saddle, Suntour Cyclone rear derailleur; Shimano 600EX downtube friction shifters, front derailleur, & crank; SR Campy-copy pedals; SR Cinelli-copy stem, bars, & seatpost; Alfredo Binda toe straps; Christophe toe clips; Sedis Sport chain; Shimano 600 headset. Back when teenager-me was trying for the 20-pound road bike this rocked Fiamme tubular rims. I shaved another 100 grams by replacing the "touring" fork with a 45mm-rake chromed Tange Champion race fork. And ... um ... I hack-sawed two inches off the seat post. Teenagers, right?
Long chainstays and relaxed angles make for a languid ride, and it's easy to rub the front derailleur cage under power. But once underway this bike motors just fine, and it has proved indestructible over four decades now. (2024 Update: The old man can still flex the bottom bracket. Yo).
60 cm (Colnago ctt measurement. Actual is 57.1cm ctc) Columbus Cromor double butted .9/.6-.7/.9 gauge lugged frame. Current weight w/pedals: 21 pounds
What on earth makes just a frame worth twice the cost of the finest complete bike on offer from the JC Penney catalog? (This is foreshadowing. A spoiler alert. If you've read this far, you have the disease too, and you know exactly why you're still at the top fraction of this page). The little ad in the back of VeloNews made a fine case for the outlay, but this kind of money was only theoretical to a grocery bagger. Time and eBay fixed that.
I fully buy into the hype on steel tubes joined together by guys from the Old Country whose first names end in "o." There’s an over-the-road resonance and return on energy that's missing in other bikes. This Colnago is a thoroughbred that has become hardwired to my cycling soul. After tens of thousands of happy miles together she recently had a midlife crises: her derailleur hanger snapped just as I was rolling into my driveway after a long ride. Blessed though the timing was, this caused an ungodly amount of trauma to the rear triangle, so I removed the derailleurs, twisted and bent metal, then cut a snappy new gold chain to-size for a 70-inch gear. She now has slick little stretchy silicone LEDs front and rear. We cruise the streets silently late at night remembering the journey, plotting more.
55.88 cm Columbus SL double butted .9/.6/.9 gauge lugged frame. Current weight w/pedals: 22.6 pounds
A bike from the Molteni team inventory of 1971-74. Not a size Eddy would have ridden, but somebody dressed in Molteni Orange shed sweat upon it on the Le Col de la Croix de Fer, et al. I love the way everything screws together easily and functions as it should on this bike, whose frame and componentry represent the pinnacle of what the world's racers rode for decades before we had asymentrical hyperglide drivetrains hung on nanofiber monocoques. As much as I love brifters, the main improvement we've seen in the last half-century of cycling is a better-shaped inner cage plate on the front derailleur. After weighing this out and considering the period state-of-the-art componentry (but for the saddle I don't see any real grams coming out of an SL frame with drilled Nuovo Record & sew-ups), it's doubtful any pro was riding a bike much under 22 pounds back in the day.Despite the thinner tubing, the ride is at once alive and sublime as with the larger Cromor-tubed Super above -- proving Ernesto knew his stuff when it came to matching tubing wall thicknesses with frame size.
53 cm (long-ish effective toptube makes this fit fine with seat/stem adjustments) Reynolds 853 double butted .7/.45/.7 gauge tig-welded frame. Current weight w/pedals: 19.2 pounds
Poke around on eBay and you'll see a nice Waterloo-built 853 Zurich or Maillot Jaune come up every now and then. The previous owner built this in full Campy/Cinelli and took great care of it ... and as this one came to market back when Lance was considered God and Greg his bitter anti-Christ, the whole thing cost less than a carbon crankset. Of all my bikes, this is the raciest. It just disappears under me and goes.
57 cm Columbus XCr double butted .6-.65/.4-.45/.6-.65 gauge tig-welded frame (3.98 pounds in-the-paint), graffitied and signed-off by the master himself on the Day of St. Maximus of Verona, 2009. Current weight w/pedals: 19.6 pounds
This frame lived on a gallery wall for a decade. On the night the owner decided to release it to the fates of wrenches and roadways, fate found me on eBay (Developing Theme). The build took a few months as parts arrived during the pandemic supply chain bottleneck, then a few bonus weeks as I figured out that assembling the latest Campagnolo group means acquiring the latest silly-priced Campagnolo "specialist tools," including front derailleur gapping guides to clear ever-so-slightly asymmetrical chainring teeth to the sub-millimeter and $200 chain tools to solve a problem Shimano solves better for free. Add Torx heads living randomly where hex heads once lived quite peaceably and "user manuals" that amount to the middle finger in four different languages ... and I'm really just about strip everything off, throw 105 on and spend the rest of my days bitching about money-grubbing Italians ... giving special attention to the user manuals, which basically say, "Make sure you install this part correctly. It's really recommended you pay a specialist to do it. Why are you still reading this user manual, schmuck? We're not going to tell you how to install it in any language."
But now that everything is together and tuned to the millimeter, I suppose there are those resolute clicks and right-now brakes. The industrial artistry. Mainly, it's the brakes.
The Ride
Oversize paper-thin steel tubes and massive chainstays rolling on stiff Zondas and unyielding Gatorskins. Have I just assembled the nutcracker suite? Nope, and hooray. Dario's finest rides like Ernesto's above minus a few pounds ... slightly more alert ... a little more road feedback. Italian steel souls laugh at the eons and dance on the face of marketing blather. And in motion, it ... hums. Dario's ghost is in the machine. We ride.
56 cm 3AL/2.5V titanium tig-welded frame. Current weight w/pedals: 18.5 pounds
The XB-70 Valkyrie was a massive delta-winged Mach 3 bomber powered by six General Electric YJ93 turbojet engines that proved too over-the-top for even the go-go 60s. It was perfected just as Russia developed anti-aircraft missiles capable of hitting it. Two were built, one was crashed, and the survivor now lives at the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. This ground-bound Airborne Valkyrie was also doomed, introduced in the midst of squadron-upon-squadron of carbon fiber raptor attacks during the rapid Fe-Al-Ti-CF materials evolution of the new millennium.
The massive shaped chainstays (Airborne calls them GAMS ... Graceful Arc Maximum Stiffness ... a literary/engineering masterpiece if you ask me) ensure great power transfer, but the rear bites back more than steel or carbon triangles on big bumps. Any attempt to trail brake on wet curves will bite back even harder. And if the roads aren't perfect, the thing loosens headsets every few thousand miles. I recently rebuilt this in the latest Shimano 105, and now it's my very favorite rain bike of all time. Smooth, fast, tough. Feels forever.
"Medium" (55 cm) carbon monocoque with full carbon dropouts. Current weight w/pedals: 15.6 pounds
This is the only bike I've ever purchased from a bike store. It was on end-of-the-year clearance at Performance and really only needed a good wheelset (Blackset Race clinchers) to hit the sub 7 kg club. Carbon really is the current state of the art for the reasons you might suspect: Everything is fat and stiff where it needs to be and spare and feathery where it doesn't. You can't replicate this in metal. The rear triangle is so tight that the engineers called up the wisp of a crescent void at the back of the seat tube for tire clearance -- sort of like those gimmicky 70s Schwinns, but here this is no gimmick.
Over small bumps and chipseal this bike reads the road like a steel bike filtered through 1/8" rubber bushings ... or titanium filtered through 1/16". It glides/floats over the bumps and eliminates the tingly sensation you feel with metal bikes on rougher asphalt. Over bigger bumps the frame's damping abilities are exceeded, so a major frost heave can be a pretty mean experience compared to the quick, light spring-over snap you feel on a steel race bike.
Back in the steel era, Ernesto Colnago once said that everyone wants to climb on a 16-pound bike, but no one wants to descend on a 16-pound bike. I think the ability to manipulate the stiffness and shape of CF tubes puts that worry to rest. The bike never feels nervous.
_________________________________________
My Contribution to Internet Arguments
CF vs Ti vs. Steel in these Road Bikes
The carbon fiber GTR is a fast, light, comfortable and feels like it will play nice on any road. Zero bb flex and straight up the hill you go. The bike never hints at being fragile, and the glide-over-small-imperfections carbon factor makes for more confident forward progress on iffy roads than even a fat-tired steel mountain bike. It's probably a perfect modern road bike.
The Ti Valkyrie is a few beats smoother than steel of similar geometry over chipseal, however, the geometry and tube sizes that allow light, stiff, and sprightly to play nice together in a metal bike make for nasty work over sharp bumps compared to carbon, and especially steel. A fast, dreamy, bomb-proof ride on any half-way decent road. Probably the bike you ride around in The Apocalypse when it's in town.
The 853 LeMond is among the finest steel bikes I've ever ridden, but I rode it for over a decade with a harsh wheelset before I realized this. After swapping out low-spoke-count semi-aero rims for a set of Blackset Race clinchers ... WOW. A smooth, light, unobtrusive bike that just becomes part of me. Props to the craftsmen in Waterloo and the guy who designed it, America's greatest probably-non-doping bike racer.
The Cromor Colnago Super Sprint and SL Colnago Super Eddy Merckx tie for the most supple and playful of these bikes. These skinny-tubed racers from the classic days give up nothing in speed to the others, but are every bit as happy dawdling through haphazard urban infrastructure as flying down the highway. Cross gravel parking lots ... run some ruts ... fjord the sidewalk for a few blocks. They have your back.
The XCr Responsorium is a lighter, slightly more alert and responsive dead ringer for the Cromor Colnago, which is really no surprise given the nearly identical frame sizes and geometry. It proves in all its Ciavete glory that rock stars live forever and always get the chicks.
Since all of these materials can be made into first-class race frames and subjective ride arguments rage all over the internets, here are some cold, hard subjective ratings based on the race frames I've ridden on 700c 23s with identical tire pressures and using similar seats and bar tape ... noting that all frames, regardless of material, ride somewhat more harshly in smaller sizes and especially in compact designs.
Material Road Buzz/Sharp Impacts (Lower = Better)
1" Steel 3/2
OS Steel 3/3
Aluminum 5/5
Titanium 2/4
Carbon 1/3
Executive Summary: Well-designed carbon remains tough to beat. But set up a classic steel frame with a fisftul-of-seatpost Coppi-style and ride through eternity with no doubts.
_________________________________________
Campagnolo vs. Shimano vs. SRAM
Campy: Click
Shimano: Swish
SRAM: CLACK-CLAAAACK
Best Brakes: Campy
Best Front Derailleur: Shimano
Best Shifting Scheme for Numb Fingers that Doesn't Trigger Inadvertent Braking: SRAM
Manufacturer Tiers
Chorus. 105. Rival. All of them work every bit as well as the top-tier offerings from their respective manufacturers. You give up prestige, durability drama, and 200 grams. With a sub-2-pound CF frame you can hit the UCI weight limit with mere 105. Still want Record, Dura-Ace, Red? I get it.
_________________________________________
Tire Pressures
On my 700C 23-25mm Road & Track Bikes: 100 PSI
On my 27 x 1-1/4" Schwinn Paramount, Sports Tourer & Varsity: 85 PSI
On my 26 x 1-3/8" Schwinn Collegiate & Speedster: 50 PSI
On my 26 x 2.125" Schwinn Ranger: 50 PSI
On my 26 x 2 x 1-3/4" Schwinn Panther III: 45 PSI
On my 26 x 1-3/4" Schwinn Panther III: 45 PSI
On my 20 x 2.125" / 16 x 1.75" Schwinn Sting-Ray Krate: 35 PSI
On my 26 x 2.125" Schwinn Panther: 24/22 PSI
On my 26 x 2.3" Gravity Basecamp: 40/40 (26/23 snow) PSI
Under the Caliper: Selected Inflated Tire Widths from this Collection
MM Example Bike and Rim/Tire Fitment
22 1971 Colnago Super Eddy Merckx and 21mm NISI 700C Tubular Rim/Clement Super Condor Sew-up
25 1989 Colnago Super Sprint and 21mm Mavic 700C Clincher Rim/25mm
29 1974 Schwinn Paramount and 25mm Weinmann Rim/27 x 1-1/4
32 1973 Schwinn Sports Tourer and 25mm Weinmann Rim/27 x 1-1/4
32 1967 Schwinn Varsity and 29mm S6 Rim/27 x 1-1/4
37 1969 Schwinn Collegiate and 33mm S5 Rim/26 x 1-3/8
42 1962 Schwinn Panther III and 36mm S7 Rim/26 x 1-3/4 (Standard Schwinn Medium Weight Tires)
50 1962 Schwinn Panther III and 36mm S7 Rim/26 x 2 x 1-3/4 (Max “Ballooning” on S7 Rims*)
52 2008 Schwinn Sting-Ray Blueberry Krate and 39mm S2 Repop Rim/20 x 2.125 (Rear Slick)
52 2004 Schwinn Ranger and 25mm Schwinn Rim/26 x 2.125 (Original Schwinn Balloon Tire Dimensions)
57 1952 Schwinn Panther and 43mm S2 Rim/26 x 2.125 (Original Schwinn Balloon Tire Dimensions)
57 2013 Gravity Basecamp and 25mm HJC Rim/26 x 2.3
*Schwinn S7 rims are 7mm narrower in external width compared to Schwinn S2 rims
_________________________________________
The Zen of the Hipster ...
55 cm (Bianchi ctt measurement. High track bb makes this fit more like a 56 ctc road bike) Reynolds 520 double butted .8/.5/.8 gauge tig-welded frame. Current weight w/pedals: 17.4 pounds
Fixed is great exercise, just like "they" say. It changes the way you think about your ride, and it forces your legs to do things that are good for fitness and recovery between road bike workouts. I don't ride this in traffic. It is Zen on an early-morning ride through the woods.
18" 6061 straight-gauge aluminum tig-welded frame. Current weight w/pedals: 30.4 pounds
Shipped quickly from Bikesdirect.com and packed well. The assembly was marred by component bolts that were *way* overtightened at the factory. The back disc caliper bolts will need to be drilled out if that piece ever needs replacement. The fronts finally yielded to WD-40 and a long hex key with a breaker bar. I might not have noticed if both calipers weren't assembled well off the centerline of the brake rotors when the wheels are centered in the forks.
Handling on the Basecamp is nimbler and a little busier compared to the steel Schwinn Ranger below. Frame tube diameter is very similar to the Ranger, so I attribute the livelier ride to four pounds less weight and slightly different geometry. A serious off-trail rider would probably find this bike competent for rut dodging, but on the street this is getting closer to an upright road bike for my purposes. The stock setup on this bike is otherwise great: geared for anything with a bright orange rust-proof frame, we will be going many dark, wet places together.
The Schwinns
I did send Schwinn a quarter for a 1974 catalog. I was floored to see that the $100 Schwinn was nothing. They wanted four bills for their top-of-the-line Paramount. Later, a relative gave me The Clear Creek Bike Book for Christmas — one of those meditative hippy-dippy granola & moonbeam books from the era — whose forward by Peter Lawlor flat-out groomed me into the multiple two-wheeled offender I am today. The balance of the book was two-parts tech and one-part sniveling bike snobbery about what to buy and what not. Masi, Cinelli, the Peugeot PX10, and Schwinn Paramount: they were the finest race bikes money could buy — so those became the “grail bikes” of a kid who wouldn’t know that term for another 40 years.
Fast-forward to 1979. I’ve finally scraped together the cash to buy a surprisingly well-specced department store bike only to take almost everything off and replace it with a hodge-podge of Japanese/Euro parts to lose four pounds. At my first bicycle race I picked up a copy of VeloNews and learned that I didn’t know jack about bicycles: Not centerpull brakes: sidepulls. Not Reynolds 531: Columbus SL. Not Schwinns or Peugeots: Colnagos (still Masi and Cinelli, but that was fading-fast fuddy-duddy stuff).
To cap a long story that was never short: apparently the same deal with the older and wealthier kindred spirit who ordered this Paramount in 1974. Shortly after he bought this Paramount the Italians came for him too. He hung his new state-of-the-art Chicago racer on the wall and ordered a Colnago.
And so Schwinn's finest effort gathered dust (and assorted frame nicks that are clearly from storage; the drivetrain is still pristine) in all its Kool Lemon & Chromed Nervex-lugged glory for 50 years, before … (You know. eBay & that guy).
This is the P-10 Deluxe Touring model specced with Nuovo Record sidepull brakes (Weinmann centerpulls were standard) to complement the balance of standard Nuovo Record. Save for the wheels/tires (27” Weinmann clinchers rolling on Nuovo Record hubs instead of tubular rims/tires), 1/4" more fork rake, and dropout/fork eyelets, this is identical to the P-13 Professional Road Racing Paramount of that year.
It’s weird to see Schrader valves on a bike like this, but also “so Schwinn.” The company definitely hastened its demise by trying to inventory/spec so many options across its mid- and high-lines. This year you could also get a deluxe-r Deluxe Touring Paramount: The P-15 (same frame yet) with a wide-carriage re-branded Shimano Crane at the rear and a triple crank in addition to the 27” clincher rims … with Weinmann centerpulls … and Schwinn safety lever extensions (?!).
For giggles and comparison I have swapped wheels for the tubular Nisi/Clements from the Eddy Merckx Colnago above (Remember the days when you could just do that)? With identical wheels and components the two are SL-brazed-by-Luigi vs. 531-brazed-by-Wanda-or-Louise brothers from another mother: two corners of the very love triangle the original owner found himself caught in back in 1974.
So is there anything between the two very finest race bikes you could buy during the golden age of bicycle snobbery?
The Paramount’s ornate chromed Nervex-lugs-over-cheerful-Bike-Boom-Kool-Lemon are to die for. And the bike is stiff and stout, just as its maker and decades of factory-supported six-day racers intended. The Colnago’s more discreet thin-tapered plain lugs are Molteni Orange like the rest of this bike: the color Schwinn would copy with Sunset Orange during the height of their wild light & bright 70s color palette because, well … every in-the-know cyclist the world-over was smitten by Molteni Orange Colnagos back then. But the Campy crank with Colnago clover cut-outs and Cinelli stem embellished with hand-painted diamonds knock sexy out of the park here ... even if I find this svelte and supple Italian masterpiece just a little bit whippy compared to the Paramount under heavier wattage. So that answers the question about the hype. The Italians will probably always have it. They alone forge perfection, style, and shortcoming into pure, lustable art.
The ride comparison on identical tubulars? Do you like orange or yellow?
24" Schwinn 4130 fillet-brazed frame. Current weight w/pedals: 32.0 pounds
A pristine example from the Chicago hand-build cage. Original Schwinn Sports Touring gumwalls (still showroom shiny with -0- wear but a small strip of gumwall delamination). Matching Opaque Blue valve caps & bar tape.
Chicago Schwinn Nerd Stuff: Schwinn's fillet-brazed straight-gauge seamless 4130 tubing has thinner walls and was therefore constructed in a significantly larger diameter (1-1/8") than the company's 1010 electro-forged tubing (1"), and catalog-advertised weight of the era is accurate when checked against a modern electric scale. So compared to similarly-sized electro-forged frames (Varsity/Continental, etc.) you were saving about four pounds springing for a fillet-brazed Sports Tourer with alloy rims and forged aluminum French/Japanese drivetrain components over the stamped steel equipment on the Varsity/Continental lines.
21" 1010 steel electro-forged frame. Current weight w/pedals: 38.4 pounds.
In the mid-60s the company dithered between calling this variation of the Varsity Sport the "All-Weather" or the "With Fenders" model. For the princely $5 upcharge on a standard 1967 Varsity Sport the buyer got bright polished chromed fenders and the option of Violet paint instead of Coppertone ... and distributors and dealers got another small inventory nightmare. This Violet example is fitted with period-correct whitewall tires (Commonly seen on 50s/60s Schwinns with fenders ... but not on this model. Call it a mild restomod).
19” Schwinn 1010 steel electro-forged frame. Current weight w/pedals: 39.6 pounds.
This is my imprinted childhood ideal of a quality bicycle. The “curly handlebar” Collegiate that 11-year-old me decided was the sweet spot in the Schwinn lineup in the early 70s combined with the closest I would get to a “quality” bicycle by 1972, a metallic brown AMF “English Racer” my dad purchased but rarely rode. This is probably Schwinn's most "World Bike" with French hubs/chain/freewheel, Japanese derailleur, German pedals, Swiss brakes, and Made-in-the-USA Ashtabula & Chicago everything else. It’s Sierra Brown, just like my 1960s childhood home and our current 1970s home. I like it. A lot.
(A 2024 Aside: My wife and I recently spent a few days in Emilia-Romagna -- the Motor Valley. Even in the chi-chi land of Ferraris and Ducatis, ancient steel "tourist bar" bikes like these of every origin and condition are still what people of all ages ride in the cities here ... not one Colnagetti in sight).
For $25 + 3x that for shipping this arrived rough and greaseless. Repacking everything was a quick hour and adjusting a Sturmey-Archer hub was easy once I did it wrong 7-8 times. (When the hub is adjusted, just remember to stop pedaling each time you select a new gear). The 1920s-era SA second-gear clack and the “Yes, I think I did just change gears” feeling come standard on this rig.
(A note on seats for old-timey tourist bar Schwinns: The rubber-covered Mesinger available on some models is often touted as being more comfortable than the nattier two-tone Schwinn “S” seat seen on 60s-early-70s Schwinn touring models. My well-abused roadie butt can’t tell a difference between the rubber Mesinger on this and the sprung vinyl Mesinger “S” seat on the Collegiate, but the Mesinger rubber is wider and longer, so … theoretically it might be more comfortable? I'm preserving the 1969 “S” seat from the Collegiate for future collectors and now run a seat that wants to age-out while it's ridden: PRO Tip: Get a Brooks B67. The comfort and lack of constant horizontal spring graunch & BOING beats both standard Schwinn company offerings and completely transforms the ride of these bikes. To mount this seat on a skinny Schwinn EF-diameter seat post just get any standard clamp, invert the post, and keep 2 inches of the "fat" part inside the downtube. Make certain to have a 32" or less inseam when doing this).
I present Harley Schwinn, a direct descendent by way of a second-cousin dalliance of the most coveted bike of all time. You know the original as a brief detainee in the basement of the Alamo that later served as a getaway vehicle for a suburban sybarite in nun drag. This one was introduced the same year as me and we’re both just about as dinged up nowadays. It is also the brother from a richer mother to my first pneumatic-tired bicycle, a red Sears cantilever job with built-in twin headlights (The Spaceliner) — the two are very nearly dead ringers.
Panther models were half-a-fake-gas-tank and stainless steel fenders away from the company’s Richie Rich Kid top-of-the-line Jaguar in the Middleweight/Balloon line this year, and as such came fully decked with twin headlights, electric horn, whitewall tires, and front and rear racks. The front rack on this one went missing at some point over the years, and with it the original twin headlights ... probably because the headlights conveniently used the front rack for mounting and are currently worth half the value of the bike. I suspect Francis. The mild and reversible restomod here features minimalistic LED lamps front & rear as well as a stealthier, much lighter, and so-far 100-percent effective anti-theft system.
Panthers were issued as 2.125” Balloon Tire models in the early 50s only to slim down to 1-3/4” "Regular" Tornado Tire Middleweights by the end of the decade, so the fenders on this one are a few millimeters too narrow to accommodate the full-fat 2.125" but really way too wide to look right with Middleweight tires. S7-capable 26x2x1-3/4" tires solve this problem: the inflated result is a barely-noticeable 7 millimeters slimmer than a 2.125" tire on an S2 rim). This is currently running the bodged balloons, which provide no meaningful ride difference compared to the standard 1-3/4" but are simply required in the name of All that is Correct and Holy. Middleweight tires under Schwinn Balloon-era fenders were but a crisis of confidence in those panicky days of the Euro lightweight invasion. (Witness today's ubiquitous cantilever-frame balloon-tire Beach Cruiser).
This historically ripe theft target is equipped with a state-of-the-art Harleen Frances Quinzel anti-theft system that employs progressive levels of threat response including a trick gum dispenser, hand taser, mallet, live munitions, and stink-eye. Because who wants to lug that 100-foot chain around? The Schwinn-made triple-heat-treated Dur-A-Roll bearings are still rolling smoothly after six decades and the Bendix red stripe coaster brake hub is somehow still exquisite after all these years — it provides incredibly fine finesse for a braking device that depends on reverse-leg power.
Ignaz Schwinn’s son F.W. would famously visit a motorcycle fetish upon the company’s offerings beginning in the 1930s — from fake gas tanks to balloon tires to dabbling in motorized bicycles with real gas tanks and balloon tires. The Panther was the beginning of the end of this trope, for beginning in 1959 this model and the later Streamliner would rep the company's three-year run of rare Trim-Line (read: half) “gas” tanks … maybe Schwinn’s way of blinking the theater lights to tell everybody the fake-gas-tanks-on-bicycles era was coming to a close … or perhaps only another exercise with the Sneetch’s Star-On/Star-Off Machine. In any case, this cantilever design dating to 1938 lives near the Radiant Red pinnacle of American pedal-wheel excess. The cherry on top of this 1962 model is its one-year-only Trim-Line tank design with more paint (cherry) than chrome.
Between the Panthers and Paramount, the entire scope of the company’s Balloon/Middleweight/Lightweight/X-tra Lite marketing blather is in inventory 'round here ... and in defense of F.W., in a world most of us don't live in, old-timey chromed-up lead sleds like these Panthers are indeed the bomb.
No, you wouldn't want to stop-and-go them in traffic, go up hills, or against the wind. But get rolling in their intended environs and you will understand why the flatlander suburban Chicago Schwinn progeny were asleep at the switch when the Europeans came calling with svelte, responsive, much lighter machines. Once underway with these beasts you roll ... and you and stay rolling with nary an interruption in progress. Feel the shove of pure inertia and smooth, sure silence afforded by buzz- & rattle-intimidating weight and money well spent on the the best steel bearings. Think fat Francis underway with a few generations of trust fund tailwinds and nowhere to go but the country club and back. You might feel predestined to arrive at your destination. You might feel privileged ... spoiled ... or absent all that might want to steal such a bike from the pinhead down the street who once refused to sell it to you for all the money in the world ... not for a hundred, million, trillion, billion dollars ...
17.5" straight-gauge 1010 steel tig-welded frame. Current weight w/pedals: 36.4 pounds
The guy working in the bike aisle at Target told me to feel free to take this for a spin in the store. It was a fun ride while it lasted: the floors at Target are smoother than any road and it's hilarious calling out "on your left" as you wind through Lingerie. Somewhere around Housewares a manager flipped out. I told him the guy in the bike aisle was telling everybody to test bikes in the store and that teenagers were doing motocross jumps using tire ramps from the automotive aisle. While Dwight Shrute got on his walkie-talkie I booked for the checkout and walked out with the evidence. After 20 years and several thousand miles of urban warfare and late-night suburban puttering I must insist this is the best $115 I’ve ever spent in bicycling.
These very inexpensive "Chinese Schwinns" are often rabidly bashed on the web by the bike snob crowd, but they're one pedal & toe clip upgrade away from urban biking perfection. You will not find a better or more durable recreational ride at any price, and you might get an epic test ride besides.
2008 Schwinn Sting-Ray Blueberry Krate [Schwinn Sting-Ray MAG crank & Schwinn Slik rear tire. Coaster Brake. 1-speed] Cantilevered straight-gauge 1010 steel tig-welded frame.
Current weight w/pedals: 37.1 pounds
I grew up in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the 60s and these things were everywhere. For whatever reason, most had their handlebars replaced with those tiny chromed & foamed automotive steering wheels you could buy in the air freshener/fuzzy dice aisle at Kmart — only to be ridden no-hands anyway — maybe after the KoolKidz figured out a tiny steering wheel provided possibly less control than no-hands.
The Sting-Ray’s Jersey street punk image was already working against me when it came time for my first real pneumatic-tired bike. My mother was also convinced those banana seats were going to bust-up my junk the first time I came off the pedals the wrong way. My maternal grandmother, lord bless her, smuggled me a plastic-tired knock-off decked out with a motorcycle tank when I was five, a thrilling, buckboard rattle can that my mother let go of one afternoon after a few runs up and down Dahlia Road holding the sissy bar, thus minting a new road-going terror.
Decades later when it came time to buy my son’s first real bike, the old Schwinn company was long gone, but this Chinese Sting-Ray (Krate, if you will — it does have that 16” front wheel) was sitting on the sales floor at Walmart in 2008 for the same retail price as the original 1963 Sting-Ray. I snapped it up. The kid rode it around for a week, didn’t bust up his junk, and said he felt like the coolest kid on the block. We had an epic blizzard. By the time everything melted he was ready to go faster and farther than poser bikes like this go. So now pops can be seen in the neighborhood on this periodically — holding on to the factory handlebars and risking his junk. (If mom could only see the saddles I’ve risked my junk to over the years).
The only real difference between “Chicago-made” and “Chinese-made” Sting-Rays is four letters. One is electro-forged and one is tig-welded. The rep even has an S2 rear rim and S7 front like the original.
(2024 Aside: The Pacific Cycle iteration of Schwinn recently noticed they were practically giving away the Chinese copy of this coveted old boomer bike, so they killed off that $59 Walmart offering and are now selling essentially the same bike via Amazon in limited-edition colors for $400-600 a pop. Ouch).
On the Trainer
56cm True Temper 4130 steel lugged frame. Current weight w/pedals: 27.5 pounds.
Lovingly assembled by the fine folks at Schwinn's infamous Greenville, Mississippi plant with an upside-down chainstay bridge ... so that the water drain hole acts as a water collector hole. My wife and I have taken turns pedaling this thing like mad for hours on end, but after several decades we haven't gotten it to move an inch. The ride is pure steel. It feels like you're riding on carpet, see.
Comments
Post a Comment