Practice Makes Perfect AKA Baby Blue

[Karate Chicken Industries]

I came up on a 25"/63cm 1974 Schwinn Le Tour (fabbed 11/73, one of the first model/year made) Le Tours Monday evening via CL and a kind young man who was willing to wheel and deal a bit. It just so happened to be Opaque Blue, the same color as Blue Dream. Perfect frameset to practice with for my BO15 bike. It had been used and abused quite a bit compared to Blue Deam, but is straight and I love those 63cm Panasonic Schwinn frames for fixed gear conversions. They have just the right amount of ride quality for my purposes. I had a wheelset and a few other parts ready for this eventuality, so it was a quick resto/swap that involved mostly cleaning/polishing. The strangest thing found was new grease on top of 1974 crusty grease in the headset, DERP. I'll be ordering some Wald 815 bars to replace the cruddy black steel ones on there and get a set of decent black grips. Other than that, she's a roller already.

I love irony, a first model/year Panasonic that was sold in Chicago. Normally shop stickers go in my world, but this one stays.

Do any of you Chicago folks remember Jefferson Park Cyclery?

 

[Verrt]

Not me, but I've only been here six years, can't believe it's been that long.

Looks like it's the home of Cosmic Bikes now, maybe I'll stop by after this virus stuff is over.

 

[horsefarmer]

Nice! looking at this 1984 Suteki track 10. It is local and was built for Sears by Panasonic. Have not seen real good pics yet but I understand they came with Shimano 600 gear Shimano Tourney brakes and cool Shimano Adamas pedals.

looks like this pic but dirty,

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

Undeniable quality in those frames.

From their website:

Panasonic bikes hiding behind other labels…

You may be surprised to learn that Schwinn, Raleigh, Royce Union, Suteki, Centurion and other labels all at one time or another had Panasonic built bicycles wearing their badges. Schwinn’s very first outsourced bikes back in the early 70s were built by Panasonic. These were the “World” bikes such as the World Traveller and World Voyager. Later on in the 70s, Schwinn made a deal with Panasonic to build the LeTour model which would become the second most popular model for Schwinn in the 1970s.

 

[Grant]

I came up on a 25"/63cm 1974 Schwinn Le Tour (fabbed 11/73, one of the first model/year made) Le Tours Monday evening via CL and a kind young man who was willing to wheel and deal a bit. It just so happened to be Opaque Blue, the same color as Blue Dream. Perfect frameset to practice with for my BO15 bike. It had been used and abused quite a bit compared to Blue Deam, but is straight and I love those 63cm Panasonic Schwinn frames for fixed gear conversions. They have just the right amount of ride quality for my purposes. I had a wheelset and a few other parts ready for this eventuality, so it was a quick resto/swap that involved mostly cleaning/polishing. The strangest thing found was new grease on top of 1974 crusty grease in the headset, DERP. I'll be ordering some Wald 815 bars to replace the cruddy black steel ones on there and get a set of decent black grips. Other than that, she's a roller already.
View attachment 121776
View attachment 121777

I love irony, a first model/year Panasonic that was sold in Chicago. Normally shop stickers go in my world, but this one stays.

Do any of you Chicago folks remember Jefferson Park Cyclery?

That is WAAAAAY bigger than 63cm.

It looks like a 68cm.

 

[Grant]

Mine is a 63cm.

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

Nope, it's a 63cm. I don't think they made the 68cm production frames until the 80's.

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

1980 appears to be the first year of the 27" frame Schwinn Japanese-Made lightweight production models and they cost extra, according to the catalogs.

 

[Grant]

1980 appears to be the first year of the 27" frame Schwinn Japanese-Made lightweight production models and they cost extra, according to the catalogs.

Schwinn did make a big continental in the 70s. They are quite rare.

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

They made 26" Continentals and Varsitys for quite some time. I have both a 1980 Continental and 1973 Varsity frames in that size that will probably be a BO16 tallbike for me.