I’ve owned this ‘74 Paramount since about 2012. I was a fresh college graduate, working my first real job at a physical therapy company. A patient of mine would always talk bicycles. Her late husband was a well known cyclist in our area (Altoona Pa). He was a racer and just all around badass. When he got out of the service, instead of buying a bus ticket from Seattle to PA, he bought this Schwinn and rode it cross country. There’s even a story where the seat post broke within the last x amount of miles, and he just rode out-of-saddle the rest of the way. He was killed fighting a fire in the 80’s.
Anyway, this patient of mine really wanted me to have this bike. She must have seen something in me. So I’ve owned it since that day, too afraid to ruin it. At the time, I overhauled hubs, BB, headset, and put on “new” NOS tires that she gave me.
Fast forward, I decided I wanted to do this thing justice and get it on the road. So I put on new pads and adjusted the calipers and gave it a zip around the block, and instantly fell in love.
What would you do? It’s already not original. It was repainted in the 80’s. It has random campy bits on it. It had some braze-ons added in the repaint. Do I just keep running it 2×5? Since it’s not OG, do I considered cold setting it to 125/130 and adding a nice modern campy groupset? (I also have a 7spd Shimano RSX that’s 125mm hub).
by Reynolds531IPA