Bill Curtis wrote:
>John, et al:
I was racing in the 60s, and at the time, the Paramount was far and away the
bike to have! I custom ordered a Paramount track bike in 1962, and still have that bike. I also have 5 other Paramounts, two more of them from the decade you refer to, and not one of them have had the BB re-taped. In the entire 45 years I've been involved with Pro bikes, I've never even heard of needing to re-tap the BB. I'd suggest you recheck your source, I'll bet that he's exaggerating the situation based on one or two random Paramounts that he is personally aware of.
Bill Curtis
Costa Mesa, CA<
Bill, et al,
I certainly wasn't dissing Paramount, as it was and is my dream bike. I, too, was around the scene from the mid '60s until the late '70s, not racing but wrenching in a well-respected Schwinn shop in NC, so I've seen a lot of Schwinns come and go. As I said, Schwinn is still my favorite, and I currently have about 10 various models from this time frame. When I bought my Paramount from another listmember, the bottom bracket was already tapped out to Italian threads. Being a chrome frame, it was no doubt the logical thing to do.
As to the source, I DID recheck it as you suggested, and I quote from the Waterford Precision Bicycle site in the History of Paramounts section: "Parts supply was always a challenge. The Nervex Professional lugset, a stamped lug with its well-known and ornate profile, required considerable work in order to make a good frame. In addition, the bottom bracket was poorly machined. Someone in the 50's had purchased a huge supply of bottom bracket shells that took better than a decade to finally use up.
By the end of the 60's, resentment over these lugs and shells was so high that when the supply finally ran out in the late 60's, Schwinn sourced the Prugnat lugs as a substitute. This move was not popular since most people wanted the carefully filed and beautifully ornate Nervex lugs. Schwinn compromised by keeping the Prugnat bottom bracket shell while returning to the Nervex lugset." http://www.waterfordbikes.com/
I also quote verbatim the response of another esteemed list member who replied to me off list: "This was a standard repair for all english thread BBs of the period. I think I saw more of this repair on production type bikes of the 60/70s."
My experience with Schwinn was to return any better defective frame for replacement, while the lower end of the line were dispatched by the Schwinn salesman breaking the frame in a bench vise, no return required.
Regards, John
John Wilson
Greensburg, PA
USA