ACHiPo 

Mebbe it's just my imagination, but it seems a high percentage of the Paramounts I see are big (25") frames. Certainly not a statistical sample, but still it seems like there are a lot of big Paramount frames out there.

sbarner 

How could you possibly have a Paramount problem I only count 14, that's only enough for 2 weeks.
Think about it, the rider that has no Paramount to ride, HE has a problem he never gets the joy of riding a Paramount.
The rider who only has one, he may have a Paramount problem. He has to ride the same one all the time.
The rider who has 60+ Paramounts, He may have a Paramount problem. He can only ride each one 2 or 3 times a year.
.The rider who has 100+ Paramounts , Well He has a problem, he is keeping the rest of us from getting our fare share.[/QUOTE]

When it takes 20 minutes to get across the basement because you have to play musical bikes the entire way, and you have to perform your own furnace repair because it's too embarrassing to let a service person see how tough it is to get to -- you have a problem.

sbarner 

I picked up several Veloflex Ravens last winter, shipped cheap from England and at a great price. They are plump and round, though I wish they had tan sidewalls. There is or was a tan version. These are very nice tires.
I use Continental glue, which I buy in the 350g cans. A coat on the rim, a coat on the basetape, some time to dry before another coat on the rim and I have to carry a steel tire lever with me to prize a flat tire off the rim.
My '72 Paramount came with serrated Mavic Monthlery Route rims. I suspect the Schwinn-labeled ones are smooth versions of the same rim with a different sticker, but they sure do reach silly numbers on eBay when they show up. They're good rims, soft as frozen butter. On the potholed roads we were riding in the mid-1970s, we relaced blipped rims almost as often as we changed tires.

ascherer 

I always used Tubasti in large part because that's what was generally available in my local shops. I was good with the glue. I tried tape a few times, maybe it was Velox tape. It made a sticky mess, but it was convenient. One abiding memory is from a 5-day trip in northern VT where I had managed to flat out enough times that all my spares were flat. I probably had 2-3 spares along with what was mounted on my wheels. I was up late into the night at some ski lodge that we slept at, patching and sewing. As for the rims, I've seen indications that the 330 designation refers to the weight and that Super Champion Record du Monde are 330g, so they may be the manufacturer. They even have a rainbow label, in a different orientation. My Paramount has Soper Champion Gentleman rims now, I'm going to cross my fingers and see if I can do a straight rims swap. I'm trying to find ERD data for both.

52telecaster

This kind of negativity....

pastorbobnlnh 

@ascherer consider giving Effetto Mariposa Carogna tape a try. There's no "sticky mess." The 330 SA rims will need 16.5mm width. A shop roll is more cost effective if you plan to re-introduce more tubulars to your vintage bikes. Shop around and you can find better prices.

Pompiere

I'm kind of in the same boat. I wanted to be in the club so bad that when a forum member near me listed a frame, I bought it, even though it was two sizes too big. I thought that with my long leg vs. torso ratio, I could make it work. I was also smitten by the beautiful red paint. I did ride it for a couple summers with the Frenchiest of fits, but eventually sold it to another member for whom it was much more suited. I saw the frame listed for sale here recently. Although my membership was rescinded, I'm glad I got to be in the club for a little while. I do have standing permission to buy another, should one come along in the appropriate size.



1984 Paramount touring

cb400bill

What is the appropriate size?

Pompiere

56 to 58 cm.

Schreck83 

May 1974 P-10 Chestnut brown, 24"

pastorbobnlnh 

I mentioned in an earlier post to this thread that last week I was contacted by a Lurker through my website. Jimmy came by this morning and I removed the freewheel from his Super Sport wheel for servicing.

He brought along his new to him July 1974 P10 or P15 for my examination.

Obviously it is a repaint, with added water bottle bosses, pump peg, and top tube cable guides. Also the rear spacing was spread to accommodate 126mm Phil Wood hubs. About the only original parts are the Brooks Pro, Cineli stem, Campy seatpost, FD, and possibly the Schwinn Approved center pull brake calipers.

ascherer 

That’s an interesting set of braze-one. The pump peg is old style, and I’ve rarely seen bottle mounts that high. Given the bar controls I can understand.

cb400bill

PM sent.

sbarner 

My dad had a Sierra Brown Varsity, which was just a tad darker than Chestnut Brown. Either one is just about the classiest color a Paramount ever wore. The shop I worked for stocked Paramounts, Internationals and Raleigh Pros until '74. The last Paramount that was bought for stock was a '74 in Chestnut Brown. It sat around until 1978 before finally finding a buyer, partly because the owner kept raising the price in those high-inflation years. I remember the eventual purchaser almost walking out when he realized the bike was priced as a new model, even though it was four years old. I thnk he did get the owner to knock off 50 bucks because it was wearing Weinmann centerpulls.

sbarner 

My wife's 1973 P60. I bought it as a frameset and built it up mostly as original, but with GB upright handlebars, blue Dia Compe brake levers that almost match in color, and Suntour thumbies in friction mode. This bike is so much better with upright bars, I encourage anyone with one of these ladies' models to try it. . Weinmann concave rims didn't come out until four years later, but they were already built up, so that's what it's wearing. Regina 14-30 five speed would be challenged to shift worse, but that's part of the experience, right? My wife doesn't find 42 x 30 low enough anymore, so at some point I will likely tripleize it. In the meantime, it makes a fantastic rec path bike. I've done a high speed descent on gravel and the flex and shimmy is either thrilling or panic-inducing, depending on your perspective. I've been up and down some impressive climbs with it in the mountains and it always brings a smile to my face. It's just an all around fun ride. We ditched the Campy pedals and it is now wearing yet-another-shade-of-blue flats.

merziac

Nice work, looks great.

Swap that POS Crane out for any SunTour long cage and that problem will be solved, I know many bash the Rally's that came before and the Cranes seem to work well when new but with much wear at all they suck for me, always have.

You should be able to go to 32, 4, 6 by finding a SunTour FW to go with it that will help the other problem.

I swapped in a Campy NR that really helped with the not even I think 30t.

I put bar cons on the big silver one when I got it and that made the shifting worse but actually helped with the control.

sbarner 

Love your P60. It looks great. I'm afraid you're missing the point on the shifting, though, as well as being mistaken in your judgement of the Shimano "LeTour" derailleur, which was almost a long-cage Crane, the predecessor to Dura Ace. It is a very fine, long-wearing unit, and hardly the weak point in the shifting system. Believe me, I could get this bike to skip like a bobbysoxer from cog-to-cog if that was my goal, but no derailleur will provide modern shifting performance out of a wide-range Regina Oro freewheel with a matching Oro chain. Anyone who learned to ride in that era knew that overshifting and trimming, then responding to the rattle of being ever so slightly out was just part of riding with derailleurs. Modern riders don't even know enough to ease up on the pedals when shifting, and electronic shifting totally dumbs things down. (Actually, I think modern electronic shifting is just a transition to fully-automatic shifting, as has happened with automobiles.) I was Sheldonizing this type of freewheel way back in the '70s, having figured out the process on my own. I just don't want to grind and tweak this drivetrain.

To "enjoy" the idiosyncrasies of 1970s shifting is part of its charm and, with Regina Oro, you get to admire that beautiful matte-brass plating!

merziac

Tx, it was setup with the upright bars when it came to me, cleaned up well and rides good, ms. merziac loves it.

Well maybe I did miss your point and I did learn all this back in the good ol days so maybe I've found all the hammered LeTours over the years or I'm not that rider, never liked em and have never gotten the performance out of them that a fraction of the effort gets from a Rally or SunTour.

Glad they do the trick for you and you are not alone.

merziac

@sbarner

Also may not have iterated the bar cons making the LeTour work better enough, they have always facilitated shifting, over shifting and trimming for me.

I never raced and don't ride in the drops, can't stand or tolerate DT shifters on big frames, can't lean over on bikes that fit me well or shift the DT's.

Total agreement on the new tech, plug and play, disposable, cartridge, throwaway, profit at all costs does not bode well in the long run, especially for us and C+V.

pastorbobnlnh 

I just had to add this photo in response to your Oro observation. I recently brought this beauty back to life for a client. Would look perfect on any of our P13s.

'02 nrs

sbarner 

There were, of course, two versions of the Rally, the original drop-knuckle one and the later one that was essentially a Gran Sport with a long cage. I understand that the later one was due to pushback Campy received from customers who objected to the obvious way the first version copied Japanese designs. Suntour, of course, held worldwide patents on their "Slant Pantograph" design, so Shimano copied the drop-knuckle feature, but waited for the patents to expire before twisting the parallelogram as well. Campy did the sane with the first version of the Rally, as did Simplex and others. This helped reduce the amount that the upper jockey wheel drifts up into the larger cogs, but doesn't track the actual cog profile as well as the Suntour or Huret, though the latter had its own fatal flaws. There is no functional reason why a Rally should shift better than a LeTour, other than that it was better made. The first version of the Rally was infamous for having the drop knuckle snap off, as were all of the similar Simplex units.

I always thought Suntour derailleurs in the bottom end of the spectrum were over-hyped. Yes, they usually worked better than most of the European derailleurs in their price range, and we installed cases of them in place of plastic Simplex mechs, but the parallelogram pivots were nothing to write home about and they got sloppy pretty quickly, especially when they got into the grit. This didn't affect the shifting all that much, but many of them also had a poorly designed and executed anchor bolt that would snap off if overtightened or worked too many times. Long cage Suntour units typically had the upper jockey wheel concentric with the lower pivot. Offset jockey cages can often be setup to keep the upper jockey wheel closer to the cogs, with a similar effect as achieved by the Slant Pantograph designs. There's not much any derailleur can do to overcome the crude link and tooth profiles of the pre-UG era. Uniglide started us down the path of better shifting and today's ramps and pins and shaped sideplates are truly wonderful things.

sbarner 

So pretty, and those notches are "Extra Virgin."
When I'm feeling low, I go down to the shop and stare at the Regina cog board. Like the Kama Sutra, it covers so many different positions.

ascherer 

These landed from the 'bay. Such minimal wear and glue residue, it looks tires were mounted and ridden once. I see various opinions on manufacturer and specs, any additional info is appreciated. I'm going to measure them up and order spokes using the Campagnolo high-flange hubs currently laced to Super Champion Gentlemans, and I'll have my first set of tubulars in maybe 25-30 years. Madness perhaps but these were too nice and affordable to pass on.



The other one weighs 344 even.

merziac

Well I've never broken a Rally and have tried plenty, 3 in use over the years or a SunTour pinch bolt.

Been a mech/tech/hack all my life, bikes since 12, ASE/fomoco Sr Master tech and dragraced mc's twice a week for 25 years.

Many a hamfisted lad has made a part, component and tool look bad for not understanding the physics of an 8mm vs a 15mm.

We all have our strengths but when push comes to shove, too many lean in and snap/bang, their done, something we can't afford now days with these critical parts being exterminated and already in short supply.

There is also the "we love these guys effect" when we get onto something we like that works for us we embrace it and that breeds success as we go all in.

Also agree on the low end ST's but they were a solid go to and just about anybody could make one work so long as they didn't snap the bolt.