TXJedi

Hello all,

First time posting, so go easy on me,

I have a limited amount of knowledge about bikes, but I'm experienced enough to tune one up. While perusing craigslist, I found two vintage bikes for sale, a late 70's raleigh gran prix and a late 70's schwinn continental 2. Both are listed for $50, but probably only good for the frames. They seem to be in decent shape, and I just wanted to know which would be the better investment for fixing up. Any help would be appreciated, and please go easy on me.

randyjawa 

Welcome to the Bike Forums.

Personally, I would go for the Raleigh but only because I don't know much about Schwinns except they are, for the most part, ungodly heavy.

Since you are just getting into the interest of vintage bicycles, click on my signature below. That link will take you to MY "TEN SPEEDS", a website intending to help people, new to the vintage bicycle scene, come up to speed quickly, while learning how to avoid costly and time consuming mistakes.

Hope it is a help.

Gravity Aided

Definitely the Raleigh- and visit Randyjawas website, too. You can learn a lot there.

wrk101

Neither is going to be a great investment to fix up, both are low end bikes. Without pictures, no idea which is the better deal. In general, its all about the condition of the paint and decals. Realize the cost to fix up a low end bike is pretty similar to the cost to fix up something better. So a little more spent up front on a better frame can yield a much better bike.

Myself, I would look for a Japan made frame from that era instead. Parts are much more plentiful, standard sizing, etc. The older Raleighs had unique bottom bracket threading, making upgrade/replacement more of a headache. Now if you were just looking to rebuild it, with its original parts, a lot of the headache is avoided. But if you want to upgrade it, its more difficult.

https://sheldonbrown.com/raleigh26.html

Paramount1973 

Don't know about the Raleigh. The Continental will be a tank ( I have one) with steel rims and cranks. Nice riding bike, despite the weight, and the alloy randonneur handlebars are nice. But, you are looking at a 35-38 lb bike. For a Schwinn, I agree that I would hold out for one of the later Japanese made versions, like the later LeTours, World Sport, Super LeTour, etc.. Here is a link to a series of Schwinn catalogs.
https://waterfordbikes.com/SchwinnCat...80/index3.html
https://waterfordbikes.com/SchwinnCat...990/index.html

formicaman

Raleigh Raleigh Raleigh Raleigh. The Continental weights a ton. I had a Gazelle that was pretty similar to the gran Prix (it was a Raleigh affiliate at the time) and it was fantastic.