A few years back, Schwinn rolled out a Predator Team 24 which was essentially a tribute bike to the '83 model. Steel frame instead of chromoly, steel components instead of alloy, so it was a boat anchor, but hey, it looked great anyway. They started out on Amazon around $279 or $299 or so. For weeks (months?) I watched the price drop... 269, 249, 229. I decided that if that sucker hit $200 I was going to pull the trigger. Then suddenly the price did a moon shot and they were well over $300, close to $400. Dang it, missed my chance.
Well, the prices are finally coming back down, but I didn't actually have to spend anything. I just traded away a crusty but complete Ross Apollo for this one. Someone had peeled the stickers off and put a different seat on it.
Turns out a reasonable-looking set of stickers is easy to get on Fleabay so here we are:
Manufacture dates for new stuff is NOT available on any of the traditional Schwinn serial decoder sites, but I did find this information on Pacific Cycle's website (pertaining to a recall on a different model):
If I'm correctly decoding my date code from that, my bike was manufactured on June 30, 2021:
It's a nice cruiser/rider as is, but I'm hoping to gradually switch out parts with more retro stuff. For example, the chainring/spider is a cheesy approximation of a Sugino Crown unit like the old bike would have had, but the little Allen head looking fasteners are actually rivets. I have a legit chainring/spider downstairs to put on once I find an old one piece crank with a nicer finish. I also have a set of repop Dia-Compe Tech 3 brake levers currently on a bike that doesn't really deserve them, so they're going to get robbed and swapped. Then an appropriate style stem, an alloy or Cr-Mo seatpost, and a decent-looking seat would round out the whole package pretty nicely, and some cheap nylon pads would be the cherry on top...
Well, the prices are finally coming back down, but I didn't actually have to spend anything. I just traded away a crusty but complete Ross Apollo for this one. Someone had peeled the stickers off and put a different seat on it.
Turns out a reasonable-looking set of stickers is easy to get on Fleabay so here we are:
Manufacture dates for new stuff is NOT available on any of the traditional Schwinn serial decoder sites, but I did find this information on Pacific Cycle's website (pertaining to a recall on a different model):
If I'm correctly decoding my date code from that, my bike was manufactured on June 30, 2021:
It's a nice cruiser/rider as is, but I'm hoping to gradually switch out parts with more retro stuff. For example, the chainring/spider is a cheesy approximation of a Sugino Crown unit like the old bike would have had, but the little Allen head looking fasteners are actually rivets. I have a legit chainring/spider downstairs to put on once I find an old one piece crank with a nicer finish. I also have a set of repop Dia-Compe Tech 3 brake levers currently on a bike that doesn't really deserve them, so they're going to get robbed and swapped. Then an appropriate style stem, an alloy or Cr-Mo seatpost, and a decent-looking seat would round out the whole package pretty nicely, and some cheap nylon pads would be the cherry on top...
