Please help id

[Froze]

My touring bike is going to be heavier because the tubes are thicker for more strength, plus I have the standard Tange Hi tensile steel fork instead of the lighter ones put on the more upscale racing bikes or even the 2 better Voyageur touring models, which is why the lightest Tenax framed bike is just 22 pounds. I'm not sure if the weights are exact for those other models but I do know for my bike it was about pound heavier than the 25 pounds listed in the specs but that may be due to mine being a larger size, the front wheel is a 40 spoke rim instead of a 36 that was suppose to be what the factory put on, and mine was weighed with a Brooks saddle, bike computer, and 3 water bottle cages (which the last two don't amount to much weight but it all adds up), however my tires are lighter than the original by about 100 grams each, and I have to weigh the Avocet but I assume the Brooks is a bit heavier; the exact weight was actually 25.8 pounds, I just rounded it off.

I would have jumped like a grasshopper to get that Peloton...of course it had to be my size as well. Those were sweet bikes, I had a friend years ago that was my team that had that bike, I never got to ride it because it was too small for me, but he really liked it, said it was the best bike he had ever bought. According to the specs it weighs 20 pounds, my Trek 660 with all Superbe stuff weighs 21 pounds but of course mine is a larger frame bike then what Schwinn used to get the 20 pound rating, but it's possible the Schwinn may have been a tad lighter than the Trek. I wouldn't mind finding one of those for sale especially for the price you mentioned but those are rare finds considering crappy Varsity's and it's crappy siblings go for $50 to $75 around where I live.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

I bought a very original and mint 1972 or 1973 Varsity for $25 about 4 years ago off CraigsList. Original Schwinn Puff tires that I think were stored in a time machine. They had no signs of dry rot and I have no clue how that was managed. Not replacements and I'll guarantee you the they probably show some drying now after it's been in my storage area (climate controlled temp & humidity, low light conditions)! Go figure.

I bought it for pieces parts to help me do a restoration of a neighbor's Sport Tourer, but decided to keep the Varsity intact and snagged a Continental in worse condition for...the same money. Still had to track down a Weinmann rim and lace up a wheel for the Sports Tourer...OEM spokes/nipples had rusted and no truing was possible on a rim that was going to probably need replaced anyway. Cut the spokes out and re-used the hub.

The 'World' series of Schwinns was OK...they really didn't light my fire. The LeTour and Peloton were slightly better IMO. Like I said, the Premis was one of several Schwinn models that came near the end and by that time the company was a joke and shadow of what it had once been. By that point, only the Waterford bikes were worth owning in my book.

I just looked at Waterford's price list...still very reasonable considering the quality and history of what you're getting: http://waterfordbikes.com/w/ordering/price-list/

I like my custom built Chicago-built 1974 Paramount...all that chrome and Campagnolo...it turned a lot of heads back in the day.

 

[Froze]

If you look closely at the 83, 84, and 85 specs you'll find out that the Le Tour was a dumb down version of the Le Tour Luxe (which only 3 years of the Luxe was made), but in 85, which is the year that I have, they raised the ante on the Luxe so that the frame was virtually identical to the Voyageur SP, which was the top of the line Voyageur, so instead of having 4130 tensile dble butted tubing it had the Tenax dble butted tubing, whereas the regular Le Tour maintained the 4130; the Luxe had Tange hi tensile steel fork and the Le Tour had a non branded 4130 fork. Compare the specs in 85 to the others and the Luxe has some glaring similarities to the high end Voyageur SP.

In 85 Schwinn was hoping to pump up sales so they upgraded their entire mid to high end bikes with better stuff, but it was too little too late.

The World Sport model was nothing special, it was their low end offering in 85 as was the Traveler which I had one that I used when I wanted to ride in the wet sand and surf of So Calif Pacific ocean, that's how little I cared for that bike! But it was great for getting ocean spray and ocean dunked because I didn't have to worry about ruining anything of real value! I also used that bike to commute to college in so the likely of hood of it getting stolen was nil vs taking the bike I trained and raced on.

Those old Paramount's demand a pretty penny these days, I like those chrome accents too, someday I hope to find a chrome accented bike if not an entirely chrome frame and fork.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

The fully chromed Paramount frames, like almost every other fully chromed frame, suffered from hydrogen embrittlement at the bottom bracket. A lot of them cracked or broke there. Usually it was high miles or hard ridden examples.

The World series were nothing special, even at that time period. They were, however, light years beyond the usual Schwinn offerings of 38-pound Varsity's and 32-pound Continentals. They were a kind of high end low end product.

 

[Froze]

Those Varsity's, Continentals, Suburbans, and Collegiates were all in the same category...40 to 45 pounds of junk, but it's amazing how many of these are still around, of course it's amazing how many were made!, but I also recall seeing a lot of frames that broke at the electro flash weld areas.

But Schwinn did make some interesting bikes that are cool looking but not something I would buy, but bikes like the Phantom, Hornet Deluxe, Stingray, and the Panther 3, these were very stylish bikes for kids back in the day, even adults were seen riding on them except for the Stingray.

In some ways I wish Schwinn would have stuck around, had they gone public instead of staying family owned they could have became even bigger than they were, that's what Trek did, they started out a family owned business and became a public owned business and took off where Schwinn left off. When Trek went into business I became a supporter because they were an American company. The first year they were in business, in 1976, I bought a TX900, which all Trek did was send the frame and fork to dealers and the buyer had to spec the components, some dealers would prebuild some, I spec'd mine with Campy Super Record stuff which made me realize that Campy stuff wasn't all that great, they were built great but shifted lousy, sorry CampyBob, I know how much you like that stuff, but it didn't shift anywhere near as good as that time period of Shimano or especially Suntour, or even others like the Zeus 2000 or the Huret Jubilee, the worst brand as a whole (of the popular ones here in America) had to be the Simplex my god they were horrid which I can't explain for the life of me why they were used in the TDF back in the day. Suntour single sprung pivot design was so good it is now used to this day by Shimano and Sram in their upper mountain bike derailleurs. The Trek TX900 was for me not every satisfying, it didn't shift all that well, the frame was flexy, but that was back in 1976 and all the bikes I tried sucked even worse so for the time I thought it was great! I did end up going back to Trek with a 412 in 1980 as my bargain basement racing bike, then I crashed that one and got a 84 Trek 660 with all Suntour Superbe, and that bike was fantastic; now days I wouldn't buy a Trek.

Just for fun compare the Campy Super Record in it's shifting abilities, see:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aee2aVp7qzo

Now compare that with the Suntour Cyclone:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EaCLUkK52w

And the crappy Simplex:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR8hdlz_iBs

And of course Zeus:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccdqskUmiA0

Nothing would be complete without Shimano:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_asALJ3qMA


Here is how far we have gone in 32 years, which is why I know all this new stuff they have is just the same old stuff we've always had in regards to derailleurs, see; see:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg32pqhbO70
This is why I've always said and known that STI is nothing but the old SIS converted from downtube to the levers, and all index did was to take the old friction system and changed the sprockets, so in reality today's modern derailleurs are nothing more than friction derailleurs that is basically unchanged for 50 plus years since Suntour invented the slant parallelogram derailleur.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

The Zeus shifted as well as any of them in the videos...and it's a direct patent infringement copy of a Record...as is a Triplex Sport. I've owned all three and NEVER shifted as poorly as the Record derailleur in that video. What. The. Hell?

Never owned a Suntour, but I owned several models of Simplex and Huret derailleurs. The better Simplex models were pretty good shifters when new and tight. The best Huret I had was fragile and flexible. It shifted...not so good.

And almost any shortcoming in any friction shifting could be made up...and also lost if it were a good derailleur...by the hand operation the lever. I never lost a race dueto a poor shift with a Record derailleur and I raced a lot of events on Campy Record/Super Record rear derailleurs.

My modern shitmoNO 5800 105 and 6800 Ultegra rear derailleurs are the absolute slowest upshifters (taller gear) of any derailleur I've ever owned. On the downshift they are as fast as Campy. The front shitmaNO derailleurs I have are is the opposite. Fast onto the 53 and slow going down to the 39.

The Record vs. 105 comparison is pretty cool. If you could hook that old Record to a good 7-speed index lever with the correct pull matted to an accurately spaced freewheel my guess is that it would shift pretty darn well.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

matted = mated. Duh!

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Back in the analog days of the cave man1970's you could jump on a Concorde and fly from New Your City to Paris in 3-1/2 hours and men regularly walked on the moon.

And...you could use a 145 gram TOURING derailleur if you were skilled enough. You read that right. 145 grams. Touring capacity. And evidently I was skilled enough. I still have mine in a box somewhere...

The 1974 Huret Jubilee. 145 grams with zero Titanium and zero carbon fiber.

It was flimsy and flexible. It made a steel Campagnolo Valentino derailleur feel like a brick and a Campagnolo GT derailleur feel like a boat anchor. Well, actually, the GT WAS a boat anchor at 15.5 ounces.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Campagnolo's 1974 Rally was actually quite good.This test was done with a too-short chain and an SR cage on a Rally body.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://youtu.be/xyKv8ZhfFyQ?list=PLB672CD01BE2E06E2

 

[CAMPYBOB]

1974 Rally Long Cage:

 

[Froze]

It's funny but people today think they have all the advanced lightest stuff on their bikes and nothing was ever lighter or better yet the 1974 Huret Jubilee. made 43 years ago is lighter than the new stuff and from what I remembered it shifted really good...better than Campy, sorry had to throw that in just for you, LOL! Anyway I remember Simplex junk all too well, I had one on a bike I owned, knew several people that also had them and they just never seemed to shift right, except maybe when brand new but you can't go around replacing a derailleur every year! They also went out of adjustment frequently having to almost constantly adjust the hi a lo screws, it was pain sort of like British cars. I do wonder what could happen if someone converted a Huret Jubilee and or a Suntour Superbe Pro to index shifting how well they would work.

There was someone that took apart and rebuilt a Shimano DA 7800 and turned it into a 64 gram derailleur, which makes me wonder why Shimano has never done that? https://www.bikerumor.com/2013/05/29/found-outrageous-64g-dura-ace-derailleur/ Of course some of that stuff used in the conversion does make me wonder about it's durability, but say a person replaced the carbon spring with something more durable the weight wouldn't shoot up very much at all.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

The Jubilee did not shift all that great, but if you were careful and shifted before you needed to it was not a bad derailleur. At least when new. They loosened up pretty quickly from shifting stress under power.

I had Simplex gears on a couple bikes. The better line of steel reinforced Luxe derailleurs were OK. The pushrod front derailleurs were about the same a Campy's pushrod setups. Slow, but sturdy.

I the days of drillium there were many lightened Campy/Zeus/Triplex Sport mechs. I never weighed my buddy's Record Drillium, but it had to have lost 40% of it's OEM mass. And there was lots more radical surgery done on them.

There used to be a job done to the parallelogram plates that left 4 tiny 'rods' connecting the upper and lower bodies. These were called 'box kite' derailleurs and they always looked like they were one muffed shift away from folding up like wet cardboard. There was just enough meat left on the outer plate for the spring to bear against. Very fragile. Maybe I can find a pic.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Here's one that didn't last...

 

[CAMPYBOB]

 

[Froze]

When you say the Jubilee didn't shift great, that is true, it wasn't a Superbe or a Cyclone, but the ones I saw shifted better than the Campy's did, not a lot better but better; Shimano 600 shifted better than Jubilee. Campy had the reliability thing going for them as did Shimano and Suntour, but I thought Suntour had the best reliability based on my experience with having over 150k on the complete groupset (except the headset, I got the headset at the same time as the rest but I went with the Stronglite that came with the Trek 660 frame and fork because it was lighter, about 15 years ago I put the Superbe on because it looked nicer and I didn't care about weight, so it has maybe 60,000 on it, but it's smooth as was the Stronglite); but I don't recall the Jubilee having any issues you spoke of, but that's fine, I was only on the team for 10 years once I left the racing world I never saw another Jubilee again, so my experience is probably more limited than yours, they were rare outside the racing world.

I know you and I had the drillium conversation before so we don't need to go down that road again other than to say they were the coolest looking components I've ever seen...EVER!

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Campy Record's shifted much better than the Jubilee. Much more positive, better feel, would shift under any load. They would not handle the wider range of the Jubilee, however.

The Jubilee twisted even under moderate shifting pressure. The lack of material and width dimension in its parallelogram was a major cause of poor shift performance, short service life (it loosened up very quickly) and most distressing was the twisting caused it to end up wrapped in the spokes in a ruined heap. It was a classic case of a poor design in a classic sacrifice to the gods of weight loss. Reach for granny a little too late or under pedal pressure and...not good!

The Jubilee was actually very rare in racing circles in my area. I don't remember a single one...who knows though. I didn't memorize every rear mech in the packs I raced in.

The Jubilee was mainly found on sport type racing bikes and day tourers. Even back in the day no 'real' tourist used a Jubilee. They were just too fragile.

Racers in my area were either on Campy or shimaNO with a few guys using Suntour stuff...like my best friend did. He loved his SOMA w/Suntour. He's been on Campy for decades now though.

Both shimaNO and Suntour shifted as well or better than Campy until Campy finally figured out index shifting. I had an early Campy switchable system that was both index and friction modes depending on which method you preferred. It was set by rotating a knurled rotary switch on the right downtube lever. I tried and tried to get the index mode to work, but it was only good for about 5 of the 7 gears on the freewheel. Yeah...designed for a freewheel.

I left it in friction mode and it shifted perfectly...as good as any competitor's derailleurs. Years later guys that knew more than me about the early index systems said the fault was in the inaccurately spaced freewheel gears. Makes sense as the early downtube index shifters were very simple, unlike today's brake lever mounted escapement mechanisms.

 

[Froze]

Huret stuff wasn't very popular in my circles either but I did see them whereas Simplex was deregulated to low end French bikes. What's weird (I looked this up today) is that Huret was the 2nd most popular derailleur used in the TDF back in the day, of course Campy had the number one spot, none of this surprised me knowing that both Huret and Campy were European and 99% of the road races were European so the sponsors would naturally support European manufactures.

I had an 84 Miyata 512 (dumpster find that I gave to a friend) that had SIS (I think that was the first year for SIS) and it worked fine when I had it, and my friend who's been riding it a lot hasn't had any issues with it either, and that SIS was the lowest end SIS made the105. I also still have a 87 Miyata Team with DA SIS, and a 88 Miyata 712 with 105 SIS and those are all working great, but of course they don't have insane number of miles on them either like my Superbe stuff has. Both of my SIS bikes have the ability to convert to friction mode right on the shift lever, I just never done it.

I'm in no way saying that all the components ever made by Suntour were the best of any company because Suntour had some flops like everyone did, but Superbe and Cyclone stuff that I have in my opinion was the best made by any company in both reliability and shifting performance back in those days, and dare say the best reliability of any company at any time period. If I had to do it over again I would have bought the Cyclone instead because it was a bit lighter, but I was young and the salesman at the bike shop was a good salesperson, but I also got a great price since I bought a previous year version which actually made it a bit cheaper than the Cyclone since that one wasn't available as a last year model sale.