bikemig 

So my new year's resolution was to not buy anymore bikes. I managed to keep that promise until Feb. 4 which is a record for me before falling off the wagon, . I couldn't resist this 1968 Schwinn Paramount when it showed up locally. Plus it's my very first Schwinn.

The parts group is pretty sweet for the late 60s: record headset, record derailleurs and hubs; a stronglight cottered crank (likely a 55 I think), and very old Weinmann centerpulls. Heck even the brooks saddle was in decent shape and the bike came with new pair of 27 inch Pasela tires.

First step is to deal with the rust. The paint job is in decent shape but it has battle scars.

For the build, I'm likely to go with a half step gearing set up I harvested off a bike that went through my shop a few years ago. It had a TA triple (52/47/32 rings) and a 14-34 5 speed freewheel. For the derailleurs I might go with a nuovo record and a long cage or I might go with a crane RD, a first gen dura ace FD, and the shimano L 600 bar ends. I know a lot of old Schwinns used shimano RDs and bar ends are nice with half step gearing. I'll keep the brakes and the wheels, add drop bars, and likely find a decent 27.2 seatpost.

Hard to take decent pics in the winter but this is what I have:

Velo Mule

Nice bike that look like it needs very little done to it. If you are going to break your resolution, you picked a good one to do it with. Keep the pictures coming.

What are you plans for touch up paint?

bikemig 

Once the weather warms up a bit, I'll break the bike down. I've had good luck with evapo rust gel to deal with the rust on the frame. There are a decent amount of battle scars on the bike and some light rusting. If that doesn't do the job, I'll likely use naval jelly.

After that, I'll look around for a model paint color that's close and maybe use some clear nail polish over that.

You're right, the bike doesn't need much as the parts are in fine working order. I'm likely to go with a triple though. There isn't much in the way of hills in central Iowa but I like riding in the driftless region which has some serious climbs.

merziac

Great score, well done.

TenGrainBread 

Nice find!

noobinsf 

Beautiful bike. I let a reasonably priced Paramount frame slip through my fingers last year, and I still think about it. I agree with your choice to buy now and decide what to keep later...

crank_addict

A nice find! That blue with chrome is handsome.

bulgie 

I already commented, in the "nitpicken" thread, on how cool the bike is, and the Cinelli stem and possible cracking in the Weinmann brakes. Just like to add, about the Record rear mech and the plans for a triple chainwheel: You probably know this but that mech is intended for a very small difference between the chainrings, like 4-5 teeth. But I got mine to work on a wide-range triple by hybridizing it with a "Sport" upper knuckle with a sprung pivot.

The stock Record has a lower spring only; the top pivot just stays slammed all the way forward in use, pivoting back only to let the wheel out. Simplex and others had springs in both pivots, allowing the whole parallelogram to pivot back in use, which vastly improves the amount of chain take-up.

So find a Sport (not Gran Sport) in good condition, drill out the rivets connecting the top knuckle to the parallelogram. Drill out those same rivets on the Record, and rivet the Sport top end to the Record bottom end with new rivets, et voilà! Congrats, you have basically made yourself a vintage Simplex mech, only in steel and bronze not Delrin, and you can hold your head up high among the Campy snobs. Sorta kidding but this does call attention to how little benefit you get from all this laborious work.

I wanted one of those hybrids, so when Jim Merz offered to do the frankensurgery, I jumped at the chance. He has a CNC lathe that makes the job of making new pivots and pivot bushings much easier, and he even made himself the specially shaped tools for peening the new rivets to look like how the originals were peened. Note, I don't know if Jim still wants to do these. He's retired and does whatever sparks joy, so he may get bored with doing the same thing over and over. Ask him if you're interested, and be prepared to wait, you won't be the #1 project on his list. If you're in a hurry, make it yourself.

One more note about the Sport hybrid -- the Sport upper spring needs to anchor in a hole in the gear hanger. Older Campy dropouts came with the hole, which goes unused 99.99% of the time because the Sport is so rarely used. It's terrible, near-useless derailer! Other than for grafting onto a Record that is. But if your dropout (or adapter claw, for hangerless dropouts) doesn't have the Sport hole, you'll need to drill one.

Here's a Flickr album showing the hybrid and the kind of gear range you can get out of it. I'm currently using it on a '50s Follis. Yes I know the mech is too new for the frame, sue me. 20 tooth range in the triple crank, 14 to 30 freewheel, shifts great.


Mark B in Seattle

cudak888 

Wow - that's a rarer bird than I thought when you first made mention of it in PM, bikemig. Love the Stronglight crank, Record mech and unpainted lugs.

Is there reason to believe the upright bars are original, and that this is a genuine P11 - from the last year it was ever offered, no less?

It reminds me so much of my '61, though the Stronglight crank was too rusty to save (though I still have it!)



I ran a 144BCD Record on it for years until a forum member here (I'm embarrassed to say I completely forgot who it was) gave me a drive side 151BCD Record crankarm under the stipulation I'd never sell it.

Still have the bike, and it still wears the arm (left arm is still a mismatched 1970's era piece). I'm still in awe that it wears the 151BCD arm.




-Kurt

bikemig 

I don't think the bars are original but that cinelli steel stem has got to be pretty old and could well be original. I'll try to get the back story on this. It was originally a shop owner's bike.

Well my original idea was to build it up with a TA triple I have on hand and use campy NR derailleurs with a long cage and use the bike for cycling events.

Based on some of the comments I read, I'm going to leave it alone and build it up as a townie with a B 72. I hate to muck around with a bike that has original gear like this. The bike is a survivor and needs to be treated like one. Looks like I'm going to have to track down a cotter press . . . .

John E

Are you sure about the year? It looks like early 1960s to me.

cudak888 

I don't really know the late-60s P11's that well - there are precious few P11's out there to start with - but I'd hazard a guess that the steel Cinelli stem is original. If so, check the clamp diameter of the bars and see if they're 26.4.

Those brake cables appear original too. If they are, the cable ends collaborate the upright bar story as well.

Going for a town bike build would be ideal. Chances are it has always been one since new.

-Kurt

bikemig 

Well that will make the build easy. I have a Brooks B72 on hand. I just need to track down the right brake levers and a set of pedals that will work on a steel crank; the pedals on this bike are for an alloy crank and the spindle is too long.

I guess rubber block pedals would be right on this bike.

cudak888 

Far as I know, Prugnat Paramounts began in 1968 and ended in 1970, though the Vagner PL fork crowns were still being used - off and on - as late as February 1972.

-Kurt

merziac

Any pedal will work on that crank, steel has no bearing, get some Campy's on there and call it good. Schwinn used the Cinelli stems, I would bet it's original but I doubt it was an upright with it and the DT shifters. Could have been as they would build or make it any way you wanted it at the dealer as well. While I don't think it would be correct, I would add "Twinn Stick" stem shifter's for an upright build, they were used on later Paramount's as well as most other 10 speeds in the 70's.

cudak888 

Not sure I follow the pedal issue - the spindles appear to be fine. Those Lyotards should be original too.

At worst, it looks like your entire task will consist of getting a pair of Weinmann upright-bar levers (easy: raid an early 1970's Raleigh Twenty for 'em) and a pair of glittery Sky Blue (early Sky Blue) Schwinn Approved grips. Get some blue metallic Bluemels if you really want to take it over the top!

I bet even the Brooks is original, as is the basic aluminum seatpost and chromed clamp.

-Kurt

bulgie 

He might mean the threads poke through on the backside of the cranks, due to steel cranks being thinner.

Campy did make Gran Sport pedals with shorter thread for steel cranks back in the '50s, but those are really hard to find and usually super expensive when you do. I think you need the shorter thread for Campy's very first alloy crank too, the one with the cap over the pedal thread on the back-side (pseudo-"blind" pedal hole).

If I were a "nitpicken C&V judge" I'd look the other way if you shortened the Lyotard thread, and polished the cut end real nice. A smear of grease over it will delay any rusting, and can be re-applied now and then when the grease rubs off. Even if it rusts a little -- well, original Lyotard axles rust a little too. Probably no one will ever know it was originally the longer-thread version.

-mb

bikemig 

Right, the threads are poking through the backside of the cranks because the pedals were designed for a thicker aluminum crank.

I have a pretty much all original Olmo Gran Sport from 1960 with a magistroni cottered crank, alloy rings, and sheffield pedals; those pedals are flush with the crank because they were designed for a steel crank. If you look at the non drive side crank in the pic, you can see that the pedal spindle is flush with the steel crank arm.

Some of the Lyotard pedals also have shorter threads for steel cranks. I bet I can find a pair of Lyotard 460s that will work on this bike just fine.

merziac

DOH! Missed all that, short or long term barring another short thread spindle find of the more correct kind, pedal washers in the meantime, sub in the Olmo pedals which may be correct for this too or?

cudak888 

I think this is barking up the wrong tree. Though there isn't that much concrete information to suggest the pedals are original, the same could be said for the argument that they are replacements.

Unfortunately, the best I can do here is quote the SLDB's overview of the 1961 catalog - '61 is the only year the components are properly listed - and for the P12 rather than the P11 (though the P12 was Stronglight-equipped and thus mostly the same as the later P11 here save for the Record rear mech):

Obviously, it doesn't say what model of Lyotards were used (I think the '61 did use a different Lyotard - at any rate, my '61's rusty crankset did have a different model installed), but when a bike has been kept this pristine and virtually unmodified, I'd be considering the possibility that the present pedals are the originals.

I need to dig up the left arm from my '61 Paramount - which still has the pedal on it, IIRC - and see if the pedal threads are too thick or not.

-Kurt

bikemig 

The list of components for the P 12 is very useful. My bike fits this pretty well other than the record derailleurs rather than the gran sport but that would have been correct in 1968. The record RD was introduced in '63.

https://www.velo-retro.com/tline.html

The lyotards are likely the double sided 460s or one of the variants. They had a long product run:

https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk...s/lyotard.html

• MODEL: P12 10-Speed Paramount Road Racer.
• FRAME: Reynolds 531 butted tubing, Nervex lugs.
• WHEELS: Weinmann aluminum alloy rims, Campagnolo Record quick release hubs.
• TIRES: Dunlop 27" x 1"-1"/4" road racing, or tubular sew-up.
• HANDLEBAR: Aluminum alloy drop handlebars, steel stem.
• BRAKES: Weinmann center-pull with quick release and hooded levers.
• CHAIN SET: Double chain wheel -- 49 and 52 tooth -- with Stronglight Competition steel cranks.
• PEDALS: Lyotard with Christophe toe clips and Lapize straps.
• GEAR: Campagnolo Gran-Sport 10-speed with bottom shifting levers. Regina rear sprocket -- 14, 16, 18, 21 and 24 tooth -- cable operated from shifting lever.
• SADDLE: Brooks Competition Standard B"-1"7.
• COLORS: Any Schwinn color.
• OPTIONS: Optional at extra cost.
  • White plastic mudguards
  • Campagnolo seat post
  • Campagnolo Gran-Sport pedals
  • Campagnolo Record alloy crank set
  • Chrome plate finish
    • Partial: Fork crown and sides, rear forks, stays and head lugs
    • Full chrome
  • Custom-built made-to-measure frame

trainman999

68 P11 parts SLDB 1968 Dealers Catalog Page 2
68 P12 parts SLDB 1968 Dealers Catalog Page 2
68 P13 parts SLDB 1968 Dealers Catalog Page 4

GrainBrain

Oh nice find! Spring can't come soon enough

merziac

@cuda888

Was just spitballin as to a short or long term fix/compromise. I used washers with the Way Assauto's I put on the 58.

cudak888 

Good stuff. Did something similar with MKS Sylvan Tourings on a '51 Raleigh.

-Kurt