In 1975, I bought a 1975 Voyageur II (opaque red). The II was a 1974 1/2 model and first appeared in the regular Schwinn catalog in 1975. It was below the Paramount and above the Sports Tourer. It was considerably less expensive than a Paramount.
It came with the SunTour bar cons and a Schwinn approved GT-300 RD. The RD has Shimano on the rear plate and pulleys only, not on the front. The Sun Tour shifters were nice, especially the ratcheting action which held the position against the cable tension.
The frame weighs 4.9 lbs and the fork 1.6 lbs, both without headset races and both chromed and painted. Weighed them when I over hauled the bike 4 years ago. I believe the full bike weight in 1975 was within 1 lb of the Touring Paramount.
John Hawrylak, still riding the Voyageur II today Woodstown NJ
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Bikerdaver@aol.com Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 1:23 AM To: roydrink@ptd.net; Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]re: '73 Schwinn World Voyageur- Was: barcons
In a message dated 10/23/2004 6:51:05 PM PST, roydrink@ptd.net writes:
John Wilson wrote:
>The Suntour Barcons and the Crane combo worked so well on the '73
>Schwinn World Voyageur that it was a shock to the Campy-equipped
>Paramounts, so much so that Schwinn would not list the Voyageur in
>the catalog for fear of losing Paramount sales...
No, the '73 World Voyageur & World Traveler were the first outsourced bikes that Schwinn offered. They looked like a Schwinn, but had it's own headbadge and Schwinn- font decals. The only place on the bike where it says Schwinn is on the seat tube saying it's manufactured for Schwinn in Japan (Panasonic/Matsushita). It looks like they wanted to form a second brand to sell through Schwinn dealers. In '74 the World label went away and only the LeTour was made in Japan.
See http://www.geocities.com/
bike, A lot of weight to dislike, very very heavy, first thing I did to it
was
to switch out to sew-ups. dropped a good 3 lbs, remove spoke protecter,
"safety" brake levers, chain gaurd, etc. Was finally able to get it down to
a
semi-nibble 22 lbs. Sold it in 84 to my chemistry prof, because his was
totalled in
a wreck. From what I know, he still rides it to this day.
cheers-
Dave Anderson
Cut Bank MT