Found an old Schwinn Continental at the thrift. I'm sort of in the market for a road bike, but I don't really need one so I haven't been willing to spend on one. This bike caught my eye at the thrift store today, and I know it'd be a project but I'm curious just how much effort it would truly be. I'm not very skilled mechanically but I've done some very basic routine maintenance on my other bikes, and I'd definitely be willing to learn. Just based on my own basic understanding, I imagine this bike will likely need new tires, wheels, and a crankset at minimum but I'm not really sure.
For those that know more than I do, what would you estimate the cost and overall effort of this project to be? Would modern components be able to replace some of the ones on this bike or would I be spending time searching for parts?
by ProCamper96
4 Comments
Looks like a 1972. 27″ steel wheels, weird crank and bottom bracket standard, *heavy*…
If you have some special love for Schwinns of this era or just love the look of this bike then go for it, but if you want a fun project bike you’d be *a lot* better off with something from the 90’s with more standardized components and generally lighter and higher quality everything.
Also, check out r/xbiking if you haven’t yet. Lots of good info and inspo over there.
I would leave it at the thrift. What type of riding do you want to do?
It depends what your goals are. It isn’t far from a ridable bike, I’m guessing a chain, tires a cable or two and brake pads and you could ride the thing. That looks to me like an Ashtabula crank, so in theory you could get an adapter and plenty of loc-tite and put a modern crank into it but that’s far more work than that bike is worth.
If it fits you and is cheap I’d advise to do the absolute minimum to get it going if you want it. 27×1¼ tires are still available. In the end you would have an old cheap bike that works and has questionable stopping power in the wet.
Leave it there and let it become someone else’s heavy ass bike. Tubes and tires will cost more than that thing will ever be worth.