Touring - 12 speed touring

a friend of mine is looking for a fairly inexpencive touring bike around 400$ so i found a used bike @ 75$ in the basement of the bike shop that i work at. i hopethis bike will work, its an old 12 speed concord, that im hopeing all it needs is new tires cables and bar tape. but my Q? is weather or not its going to be a good bike for a 7 day 360 mile ride. i assume that back in the day this was a preety nice bike and may have even been used for such riding at one time in its life.

you can tour on anything.
The first tour I rode (with 3 other friends) the bikes were:
Two Schwinn Varsities
one 5 speed schwinn (upright rider)
ONe single speed schwinn (this guy was always way ahead of the rest of us)
Tour was about 300 miles total. Year: 1971

If you are going to do a long ride, you need a few things (braze ons for water bottles, racks)

if it is comfortable and it fits, and you can attach stuff to it, then it will work. If you want to be real comfortable, angle for a more tour-specific ride... one with tour geometry, etc

On my first tour I had a 12 speed.
The other guys had 10 speeds.
I felt my bike was so advanced at the time!

I use a 14 speed.

Whatever rocks your boat.

Back in the day I used a 3speed, 5 speed
If you can ride it, use it.

george

If it turns out not to be geared wide enough, you can always change the freewheel and then go to a three-ring chainwheel (and longer bottom bracket), giving you 18. Not all that expensive if you shop through eBay and Craigslist.

Did that myself. The Magneet was 10-speeds last year, it's 15 now. Better now, but worked rather well in the old configuration, too.

My first long ride was on a 12-speed, 60 miles from SJ to Berkeley. It had some really big chainrings (48/52), so I had a bit of trouble riding over the biggest hills without walking. If you have big chainrings, you might want to see about replacing one with a smaller one. Other than that caveat, go for it!

I agree with others that you can tour on just about anything, especially if you're young and foolish. I'm another who toured on an "unsuitable" bike when I was young and couldn't afford anything else. On the other hand, it can be a real drag when things break, or when you're climbing a steep hill without sufficiently low gearing. I wouldn't go back to that old bike for anything (especially since I'm hardly young anymore - though still quite foolish.)

Comfort,fit, and mental attitude on the bicycle is the most important thing while touring. Everything else is a distant, distant, distant second. If the 12 speeds feels comfortable to ride day in and day out, it will make an excellent bike. If it doesn't, it will make a horrible bike. Have your friend do a mini 2 or 3 day tour on it and see how it feels.