mainstreetexile 

I was pretty happy to be able to buy this last week. I didn't realize until I got there to pick it up that it was practically brand new, and literally barn-fresh. The owner said his father had purchased this bike new and just put it in their barn without ever having ridden it. It still had the original dealer price tag hanging from the handlebars.

It appears to be an 84 Paramount, from the very short time span when waterford was using the tri-color 'rainbow' decals. I had never seen a Paramount with these decals before this one, and from reading up on them they are apparently pretty rare, something like only 300-400 frames were built with these decals.

I'm not certain, but the head and seat tube angles kind of appear to be a bit slacker than the regular road/racing geometry I've seen (to my eye and using an extremely inaccurate angle measurement app on a phone). That, along with the curious fact that this was built with 27" wheels makes me wonder if it's a sport touring style frame without the additional braze-ons for fenders etc. The 82 Paramount catalog I've found online makes it look like the stock Road models all use 700c wheels while the Touring frames were spec'd with 27" or 700c wheels, but I know they could be built up however you'd like, with any geometry or customizations available for the custom models. I heard that waterford does pedigree reports, but I'm not sure if I want to drop the $50 for that yet. If anyone has any info on the 1984 Paramounts and their geometry, I'd love to see it.

I was surprised to see it built up with Shimano 600, expecting some Campagnolo, but maybe this was a budget-ish build. It's wearing the original 27 x 1" Schwinn tires. It looks like there's clearance for at least 1 1/8", maybe 1 1/4", so I imagine it should have room for large-ish 700c tires if I end up swapping out the wheelset.

I haven't done any maintenance to it yet, not even lubed the chain, just wiped everything down and dusted it off to take some pictures of its original state.

I also bought a similar NOS 1985 Schwinn Voyageur with this, I'll post a separate thread on that when I get around to taking pictures.

Speaking of, on to the pictures:

mainstreetexile 

And a few more, since there is a 10 picture limit per post.

jdefran

Sexy summarizes my thoughts. Nice freaking score! Curious how much different of a price you paid compared to that tag.. If you don't wanna give a dollar amount, maybe just a percent and we'll assume plus or minus.

mainstreetexile 

Less than the tag, but I gave them more than their asking price, which was too low (may be the first time I've said that).

bhchdh 

I have no information on this bike. Damn nice.

YoKev

Love the color, cleanliness, and the rainbow Paramount decals. Love it, love it!

LeicaLad 

Lucky man. Hope it's your size!

John E

That is one very nice bicycle! It looks great, but then I have rarely seen a bad-looking Paramount.

mudboy

Sharp, but replace those tires. The Schwinn Cuicuit tires were horrible, especially in the 700x19's. They'd flat by looking at them.

koolerb

Does it fit? I keep thinking I'll stumble across something like that some day. The condition is unbelievable.

mainstreetexile 

Yep, this and the Voyageur are both my size.

Yeah, these are cracking a bit from age too. I'll probably get some 27 x 1 1/8" Paselas on it.

Saguaro

Wow, amazing condition. It's a time machine. Looking forward to seeing pictures of the Voyageur.

orangeology

droolllllllling
super awesome!!!

fender1

That bike wins the internet. Non-standard Paramount threads are always cool.

PeregrineA1 

Gorgeous!

whatwolf

Incredible.

inkandsilver

Holy sh*t. Way to go!

Jeff Wills

Someone get me a towel. I'm drooling on my keyboard.

mwarddoc

It is just amazing that someone would buy a bike that pretty and just let it sit in a barn all those years. Back in 1984, I could only dream of the day I could afford a bike that nice.

pastorbobnlnh 

Where is the serial number located (if it has one)? My '83 has it stamped in the left rear dropout like the Chicago built Paramounts. But at some point they switched to the BB shell. But, I've seen at least 2 examples of the tri-color rainbow decal Paramounts with no serial number whatsoever.



What an incredible find! Your Paramount is pristene! I love the color. I think the $950 was the cost of the frameset. From what I understand, this was the only way to buy a Paramount at this time, and then the LBS which ordered it for you would build it with the groupset you wanted.

Mine was originally built with Suntour Cyclone derailleurs, Campagnolo crankset, shifters, headset, seatpost, BB, and low flange Record hubs.

Shp4man

Was the seller in Dulzura? If they were, I tried, but you beat me to it, you bastid!

mainstreetexile 

I was hoping that you would post here, yours was one of the only other rainbow decal Paramounts that I found online, I like the way that you have it set up.

The serial number on mine is on the bottom of the cinelli bottom bracket. It has the serial number (which indicates that it was built in May of 1984) and the size code 580C.

You've probably already seen it, but there's a nice scan of the 1982 Paramount brochure on trfindley's site with some good info on them for that year at least. I'd love to see something similar for 83 or 84.

Chris_in_Miami

I don't want to threadjack, but I've got an ugly one

Amazing score mainstreetexile, just gorgeous! When I think of "hung up in a barn" finds, I rarely imaging them being this clean, that barn must have been spotless.

Bruce Enns

Simply incredible! That is a beautiful bike. You scored big time on that one!

I love seeing stuff like this.

2112YYZ

Kinda like hitting the lottery. Congrats, gorgeous bike.