I happened to notice the very nice 1951 Schwinn Paramount track bike on e-bay at Item # 1065085428. For someone not versed in US bike history I would be interested to know if this represented typical geometry for an early 1950s US track machine? In Australia at the time I understand that most track bikes needed to be dual purpose as they were usually ridden on the road as well as the track. Also, many of the tracks were flat, or at least very large low banked tracks around local football or cricket ovals. The production bikes of the period tended to have geometry similar to the Paramount in the photos. Only very few local frames of the early 1950s appear to have been built with the very tight geometry of later track machines.
PS: (and off topic) On Saturday night I took my daughter to see a local track meet. Shane Kelly was in action on his BT track bike. If ever a modern machine deserved its place in a museum as a supreme example of the coalition of form and function, this bike has to be it.
Rolf Lunsmann
in hot and sunny Sydney, Australia