1986 Schwinn Voyageur vs 1986 Raleigh Alyeska
 

I'd like to now your thoughts on the two bikes, each still having their original components, and is one an outright better bike than the other ?

+1 .... I recently crashed my beloved 1985 Alyeska, which may or may not be getting the downtube repaired or replaced, and have found a couple of deals on Voyageur frames.

I happen to have a 1990ish Schwinn World sport touring, and one of my favorite features on it is the BB drop, which I measured at a generous 80mm. Of course, there's no reason to assume other models had the same drop, especially as touring models seem sometimes to have been higher.


On the Alyeska, my favorite features include(d):

Relatively short top tube (I have short arms)
Light steering feel
Rode amazingly with 38-622 wheel swap
Double dropout eyelets front and rear
Seatstay rack eyelets
Mid fork eyelets
Cantilever brakes (kind of a downside when I contemplated a 650b swap)
All rack eyelets are properly threaded from the factory (just now discovering this isn't always true, though I expect it would be on the Schwinn)
470mm chainstays for nice ride quality
DB main tubes


IIRC, OE parts for the two bikes were very similar but I kind of don't care since the only original parts I was running at the last were the frame, fork, headset, seatpost, and brakes.

Downsides (IMO) include the highish BB height (10.5"?), lack of supplementary rack eyelets and bottle bosses, short head tube on 21" model, and funky canti bosses with the holes opposite what you'd expect for newer brakes - and I do hate adjusting classic canti brakes. :-D

Assembled both, test rode both, sold both but have owned neither. I would choose the Schwinn but would grab the first available if it came to it. Price would be a consideration and might sway me.

What do you like better about the Schwinn?

I've owned an Alyeska. Front end shimmy and a fork that was jigged wrong. Might have been a QC issue, but it was the only Raleigh USA product I was ever disappointed in.

-Kurt

I don't recall the rides so it's unfair to compare that, but I think Brand S looks much cleaner. Those '80s Raleighs looked garish to me, cosmetically overdone. As I mentioned before, I'd grab whichever one showed up first but I'd try not to look too long at the Raleigh.

Aesthetically I think the 1986-1988 Schwinn Voyageurs are among the best looking touring bikes of the 80’s and an 86 is in my list of wants. They’re very clean looking with classy decals and wonderful colors. I can’t say the same for the mid 80s Raleighs. Garish, as described above, seems right to me.