1974 Schwinn
Paramount P13
This Schwinn Paramount racing bike was purchased from the original owner in Texas. It was one of those situations where the husband was a rider and thought that buying his wife a fancy new bike would inspire her to ride and they would spend many happy miles together.

Forget it, guys.  This theory is wrong, wrong, wrong! The folks who have made this mistake are legion. The only good thing about this behavioral phenomenon is that someday the guy gives up (or the couple splits) and these bikes finally come out of the garage and go up for sale. They typically have low miles and are usually in smaller frame sizes, which is good for a guy of short stature, like me. I had been looking for a P13 for quite awhile, having sold mine in 1973. This one was not in as good shape as I had hoped (I only saw photos prior to purchase). The bike had very low mileage, judging from the lack of wear on the parts, but it had been stored poorly and I had to do quite a bit of polishing of the non-anodized parts to make them look like new again. I also replaced the Weinmann centerpull brakes with period correct Campagnolo sidepulls, which were an extra cost option on this bike. The rims were dented, so I rebuilt the wheels with new ones of the same model.

Most upsetting, the former owner took it to her local Schwinn shop to pack the bike for shipping and they must have had an idiot do the work. Parts were tossed loose in the box, resulting in a great deal of damage to the paint. I spent a lot of time correcting this and I think the results are quite good. Luckily, white is not the toughest color to match and blend, though I tried to match the shades the color has taken on over the years, as much as possible.

You can view even larger versions of any of these images by deleting the characters -640 from the file name.

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Last edited February 28, 2006