Saturday morning just as I'm walking out the door for a local club's ride, my wife Barb calls to tell me about a Schwinn Paramount at a yard sale for $20. Should I buy it??? Good girl!!! Sure! For $20, I don't care what size or shape it is! That's my babe!
I'm off and promptly forget about it, only to find the bike sitting upstairs when I come in with my old classic. Not terribly classy looking, it does have the modern Paramount graphics, looks like late seventies and rust, with a six speed freewheel, Shimano steel junk derailleurs and cottered crank, mattress saddle, mini fenders, 27" cyclocross tires??, and chrome north road bars on a genuwine ttt stem with Altenburger centerpulls and the fairly decent old diacompe upright brake levers, and ... two working bottle generators fr. & rr. with three working lights. It's a pure gaspipe frame, stamped dropouts and cheap lugs, obviously Asian, and I've never heard of a Paramount that wasn't a nice butted frame.
Can anyone speak up about the history of these? I think it might be on the cusp of on topic, but I just don't know. Right now it's more work than I want just for rail trail fodder. I might get a part or two off it before letting the local bike coop have it, but I'm thinking more of a learning experience for my $20. I've heard of Schwinn outsourcing bikes and falling on hard times, but never of them demeaning the name of Paramount. Shame on whoever made that decision!
Dan Artley in Parkton, Maryland USA