My Other '73 Schwinn

Well, since I've actually managed to create a couple of new posts this year, let's see if I can keep it rolling.  The best way I think of to do that right now is to try to catch up on some of the bikes I have in my collection that I haven't written about.  Buckle up, because that's a surprisingly long list.  I don't know if I'll get to them all, but here's a start.  Some of you might have seen my posts about my 1973 chrome Schwinn Paramount.  The bike I'm writing about now was the next model down in the Schwinn product line, the Sports Tourer.

 Like many of my bikes, this is one I looked at longingly as a teenager.  We didn't really have a lot of Schwinn dealers near where I grew up, but they showed up in magazines and I got my hands on a catalog at some point, and got to know the various models.  Of course, like just about any cyclist in the 70s, I drooled over the top of the line, hand-built Paramount.  But another model in those catalogs that caught my eye was the Sports Tourer.  Made in the USA, and more affordable than a Paramount, it seemed like a great bike.  I didn't actually lay eyes on one until college, when a guy I shared an apartment with one summer had one, and that just made me want one even more, because in some ways it was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

1973 Schwinn Catalog Sports Tourer Page

 Now, when most people think about 70s Schwinns, the bike they are most likely to think of is the Varsity. One of the first things that comes to mind about that bike is the sheer heft of the thing.  While a lot of entry level 10 speed bikes weighed around 30 pounds, the Varsity tipped the scales at somewhere around 40!  Why is that?  And why was it so popular and sold in such huge numbers?  From what I've read over the years, Schwinn set out to build a 10 speed bike that could take the abuse dished out by a typical American adolescent, and I have to say, they succeeded.  While not light, they were definitely sturdy and durable, and you'll still see a fair number of them rolling along today.

The average person taking a quick glance at a Sports Tourer most likely wouldn't see a big difference between it and a Varsity.  While the Paramount used "lugged" frame construction, where the tubes are joined with the use of external sleeves, the Sports Tourer was built using "fillet brazing."  At first glance, the joints look a lot like the "electroforged" (welded) ones on the Varsity and other lower end Schwinns, but it's a totally different process, involving lower temperatures and higher grade steel tubing, to yield a lighter yet strong frame.  I won't get into the details, because it's better covered here:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/schwinn-braze.html

And here:

 https://www.sheldonbrown.com/varsity.html

 For many years, the idea of having one of the fillet brazed Schwinns was on my "one of these days, if one happens along" list.  It didn't quite make the "gotta have it" category like a Paramount, or some of the other high end bikes like Mercian or Proteus or Masi, but it was always there in the back of my mind.  Well, a few years back, I don't recall exactly how I stumbled across it, but I found a Craigs List ad for what looked to be a very nice 1973 Sports Tourer.  The only challenge was that it was about 300 miles from me, but it turns out only about 30 minutes from my older brother, who understands my bicycle collecting, since he has a rather large number of guitars in his house.  A few emails and phone calls later, and the bike was in my brother's hands.  It took a few months to work it out, but on a trip to the DC area, my brother brought the bike to our mom's house, where I picked it up shortly after.  Based on the photos in the ad, I figured it was in good shape, but it looked even better in person.

1973 Schwinn Sports Tourer, as it was when I first got it.

 Once I got it back to the shop, I started looking it over and thinking about things I liked and things I wanted to change.  For the most part, the bike seemed to have all of the original equipment, with a few exceptions.  I decided I wanted to get it closer to original while at the same time making it more enjoyable to ride.  The parts that were definitely not original were the freewheel cluster, which was a very narrow range "corncob" style, more suited to a racing bike, and the tires, which were a narrow, high pressure black wall from Continental.  The white Dia Compe brake lever hoods were also most likely not original, as the levers themselves were made by Weinmann, which I believe was standard for Schwinn back then, and the catalog shows bare levers.  (Correction, the hoods were Weinmann, not Dia Compe.) Also, the bike had Huret shift levers mounted on the down tube, while the catalog shows it with the rather imposing Schwinn Twin-Stik stem mounted levers.  Finally, the original pedals would probably have been made by Lyotard of France, not the slightly more modern SR pedals from Japan.

Now that I'd assessed the bike and given it some thought, I made the following changes:

• Installed a period correct Shimano freewheel with 14 - 32 teeth, with "skipped teeth" on the largest sprockets.  This gave me both a more practical gearing range and the same or similar to what would have originally been on the bike.
• Swapped the tires for some new 27 x 1-1/4" Panaracer Paselas, which not only look right for the era, but ride great, both swift and comfortable.  Some of you have probably noticed a lot of my bikes have the Paselas on them, so I clearly like them.
• Replaced the brake lever hoods with black ones, because while originally there would have been no hoods at all, I prefer the feel of rubber hoods.  Also, the bike would have originally had "safety levers" on the brakes as well, but I don't care for those either, so I left those off.
• While I like down tube shifter levers, I like bar end shifters even more, and I happened to have a set of Schwinn-Approved bar end shifters (made by SunTour), which the catalog refers to as optional "fingertip controls", so I installed those.
• Finally, while I could have probably found a pair of the correct Lyotard pedals (I might actually have had a pair in a bin somewhere), I really prefer the very similar looking, but better made MKS Sylvan Touring pedals, so I put a set of those and some extra large toe clips on the bike, to accommodate my size 13-14 feet.
  

While I was at it, I gave the bike a thorough overhaul and cleaning, and even polished up some of the parts, like the funky Nervar triple crankset.  (Correction, as a reader pointed out, it's a DOUBLE crankset, not a triple.). The Brooks saddle that came with the bike was in excellent shape, but the bar tape wasn't that great, so I replaced it with a similar blue padded tape.  Finally, the spiffy little blue saddlebag was too cool to not keep, so it stayed on the bike, as did the classic Zefal HP pump.  

One of the nice features about the 1973 and later Sports Tourers is that they came with a Scwhinn-Approved Le Tour rear derailleur, which was essentially a re-badged Shimano Crane, one of the nicest shifting wide range derailleurs of the day.  Paired with the SunTour shift levers (a personal favorite), it changes gears just great.  The 1971-72 models had the Campagnolo Gran Turismo, which despite being made by the famous Italian company, didn't shift that great and was really, really heavy.  

I've thought about putting fenders on the bike, but haven't gotten around to it.  To be truly Schwinn-accurate, I'd probably have to find some chrome steel ones, but I'm not sure I want to add any more weight to what isn't a really light bike to begin with.  Of course, SKS (formerly ESGE) plastic fenders were popular back then, and even current models would look right.  Or maybe something shiny from Velo Orange, that's lighter but still shiny.   For now, I'll keep it as it is, and just watch the weather.

All in all, I'm really happy with how the bike turned out, and it's a lot of fun to ride.  Not the lightest or fastest bike out there for sure, but super comfortable and smooth. 

1973 Schwinn Sports Tourer, after overhaul and changes.

You can see more photos of the bike, both "before" and "after" shots, here:

1973 Schwinn Sports Tourer

A few links to other, similar bikes, and information on the line in general:

http://www.ironweedbp.com/ironweed-blog/chicago-fillet-the-1974-sports-tourer 

https://16incheswestofpeoria.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/40-years-later-the-schwinn-sports-tourer/ 

http://bikeretrogrouch.blogspot.com/2014/09/handbuilt-schwinns.html

My "new" 1977 Mondia Super "gravel" bike.

 A few years back, my pal Shawn surprised me by shipping me this lovely Swiss Mondia road bike frame for my birthday.  It hung on a hook in the shop for a couple of years, while I pondered how best to build it up.  Finally, after riding my fully equipped Goshawk touring bike on the C&O Canal and Great Allegheny Passage for years, I realized the Mondia might make for a fun, lighter option for those unpaved trails.

Originally intended to be a sporty/racy road bike, the frame is built from the well known Reynolds 531 double-butted manganese-molybdenum tubing, with the very pretty Nervex Professional lugs at the joints. Intended for 700C road wheels and tires, it would probably fit around a 25 or 28mm wide tire, which wouldn't be ideal for the kind of riding I wanted to do on this bike.

On the other hand, over the last 15 years or so (how time flies!), the bike world has seen the resurgence of a tire/wheel size that many had considered obsolete - 650B.  Wait, what the heck is all this "700C" and "650B" stuff anyway?  Well, both of those are tire/rim size labels that come from the French cycling industry.  In the original scheme of things, the number (700 or 650) indicated the nominal outside diameter of the tire in millimeters.  The letter was used to indicate whether the tire was narrow or wide, with A being the narrowest, D being the widest.  As with so many things in the bike industry, how things started out is not where we are today, and a typical 650B tire is much, much wider than a typical 650C tire is today, and 700C tires range from 23mm to 50mm or wider, while 700A, B, and D have vanished as labels. Confused?  Welcome to bicycle tire size "standards" which are anything but standard.  Some good info can be found here:  https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html#french

Okay, what does this mean for my Mondia?  Well, 650B tires and wheels are smaller in diameter than 700C by 38mm.  Mounting a set of those on a frame designed for 700C wheels gives you room for wider/taller tires, which give more cushion on rough surfaces.  In the case of this Mondia, I was able to easily fit 40mm wide tires on a bike that normally would have only allowed for 28mm or so.  I even had room for a set of fenders to boot!  I had a set of 650B wheels I'd built some some time ago, with older parts, Sansin hubs and Alesa rims with Panasonic Col de la Vie tires.  I'd thought about using them on a couple of other projects, but it wasn't until the Mondia that it came together.

The rest of the parts are things I've used on a number of other builds, because they just work for me.  Sugino Mighty Tour crank with 40 and 52 tooth chainrings, MKS Touring pedals, SunTour 14-30 freewheel, SunTour VX derailleurs and Power Ratchet bar end shifters, Nitto bar and stem, and of course a Brooks B17 saddle.  The brakes are long reach Weinmann centerpulls, which work great.  Accessories at this point include SKS Longboard fenders, a Velo Orange Randonneur front rack and handlebar bag, and Carradice Lowsaddle Longflap saddlebag.

 More photos can be seen here:  1977? Mondia Super

Another Bicycling Artifact

Well, here's another bit of bicycling history! Another rear derailleur... this time from the French maker, Simplex. I'm not an expert on such things, and apparently even experts have a hard time identifying specific models and years of Simplex derailleurs. At least that's what the book The Dancing Chain (http://www.thedancingchain.com/) says. In case you've never seen it, that book is an amazing history, primarily of the derailleur bicycle, but also of bicycles in general. Some of you may remember Frank Berto from older issues of Bicycling! magazine (back in the late 70s and early 80s, the good ol' days)... he's the lead author of the book, and it's really an excellent text.

Anyway, best guess is this is a late 50s Simplex, based on the plastic pulley. As you can see, it's missing one pulley and the hardware to mount it. A shame, because otherwise it appears to be in excellent shape. Unlike the modern parallelogram derailleur, this one operates on a push/pull rod of sorts, where there's a large coil spring that returns the pulleys to the innermost cog, and a cable connected to a "pull chain" (similar to that on the the old Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub gears) pulls against the spring to move to the outer cogs. I'm guessing when this was made, we were shifting across 3 or maybe 4 cogs. Seems strange when today we have recently seen the introduction of an 11 cog rear cluster, but 3 or 4 was the norm back in the day. The back side of the pulley cage is stamped "4 vit. chaine 238", which I believe means "4 speeds (vitesses)". Not sure what the 238 means. A model number? Maybe.

A fun thing to have, I have to admit. The oldest derailleur I've ever owned, and definitely the least like a modern one. I really like the black main pivot with gold lettering... very snazzy looking! Most Americans, if they know Simplex at all, probably associate them with their Prestige derailleur from the 60s and 70s, which came on any number of bikes in those days. It's singular feature was that it was made almost entirely from delrin, a low friction plastic, very high tech in its day, I suppose. You'll find lots of discussion online about the Prestige, I'd bet, both pro and con. I've owned a couple of bikes with them, and they shift well, but seem really flimsy. And the front derailleur mountings eventually crack with age, pretty consistently in my experience.

If anyone knows more about this derailleur, please let me know. And no, I'm not interested in parting with it. But if you have a source for the missing hardware, let me know!