john hawrylak

I measured the fork rake on my 21” 1975 Schwinn Voyageur II (model V21) and got 51 mm or 2”. This results in a 53 mm of calculated trail with
• the stock 27 x 1-1/4 tires (630-32) and
• a measured 73° head tube angle with a Wixey WR300 digital angle finder

I checked the Schwinn catalogs on the Waterford site to see if they specified fork rake;
• The 74 and 75 catalogs do not The 75 had a full page insert for the Voyageur II without mention of fork rake
• The 77 & 78 do not mention the rake for the Volare model
• The 80 and 81 do not mention the rake for the Voyageur 11.8
• The 82 catalog specifies a 2” (50.8 mm) fork rake for the Voyageur 11.8 and 73° head tube wit 27 x 1-1/4 tires. Same trail of 53 mm as the 1975 Voyageur II
Only the 1982 catalog gave a fork rake (2”)and it was what I measured on the 1975 Voyageur II. It seems Schwinn used a 2” fork rake on the Panasonic built 73 to 82 Voyageur models, regardless of the model name

2 questions:
1. Has anyone measured the fork rake on a Voyageur II or earlier World Voyageur (72-73)? If so what is the value you measured?

2. Does the calculated 53 mm trial seem low?
• I rode the 75 Voyageur II on a century with a handle bar bag supported by the handle bar. I did not notice any degraded steering.
• I thought Schwinn used a fork rake of less than 2” on the Paramounts, resulting in more trail.

EdgewaterDude

The original review of the '73 World Voyageur in Bicycling magazine notes that it has two inches of rake. I suppose I could go down into the basement and measure, but is there reason to believe the magazine was wrong?

53mm isn't particularly low, I suppose. I have a handlebar bag that sometimes has noticeable weight in it, but I've never had screwy handling at all. Actually, I can ride no hands all day long with the bag loaded, if I had to.

john hawrylak

Edgewater Dude thanks very much for the reply. No need to measure. I was not aware of the magazine article, it confirms the 2" rake.

The 53mm trial seemed lower than the high 50's to low 60's which most pundits discuss as ideal. Maybe Schwinn wanted to get a more responsive handling. It appears Schwinn used the 2" trail on the Voyageur and comparable after models through 1982, since the Voyageur 11.8 had 2" in the 82 catalog.

john hawrylak

Edgewater Dude thanks very much for the reply. No need to measure. I was not aware of the magazine article, it confirms the 2" rake.

The 53mm trial seemed lower than the high 50's to low 60's which most pundits discuss as ideal. Maybe Schwinn wanted to get a more responsive handling. It appears Schwinn used the 2" trail on the Voyageur and comparable after models through 1982, since the Voyageur 11.8 had 2" in the 82 catalog.

Metacortex

I was under the impression that the original forks on the '73 World Voyageur and '74-'76 Voyageur II were made by Tange, specifically the model 118-2. I have observed that earlier versions of these forks had SunTour dropouts, later ones had Shimano (with the same shape and M5 threaded eyelets). The WV and VII also came with Tange Falcon headsets.

EdgewaterDude

I suppose that if we were talking about trail in reference to touring bikes, than 53 is quite low compared to others. I believe the Surly LHT has something like 64mm of trail. This definitely stabilizes the bike, but you then get the feeling, as others have described, of 'plowing a furrow.'

Also, I never measured the trail on my '86 Voyageur, but it seemed equally as low. The bike was fairly responsive and also never shimmied or got wild with a handlebar bag. That bike, too, was also a Panasonic built Schwinn.

SuperLJ

Jan Heine has written extensively about front-end geometry in Bicycle Quarterly. The long and short of what he has to say is this:

High trail geometry works best with skinny tires - lower trail with wider tires. With wider tires you have more pneumatic trail, which offsets the lack of geometric trail. When "pundits" say that 60mm of trail is ideal, I suspect they're referring to racing bikes with 23mm tires. As an example, for 700x30mm tires Jan advocates 42mm of trail as being perfect. My '78 Bertin has pretty close to that, and I love the way it handles.

Weight distribution also has a huge effect on how much trail is desirable. The reason most modern touring bikes (like the LHT) are designed with really high trail figures is that many tourists, especially in this country, tend to put tons of weight on the back of their bikes (rather than distributing it equally), which reduces the overall effect of trail.

The designer of your bike knew what he was doing - 53mm of trail with 27x1-1/4 tires sounds great to me.

john hawrylak

Edgewater Dud

My 89 Voyageur 21" C-T has 2" of rake and a 71° head angle giving it a quite high 67 mm of trail. High trail is due to the shallower 71° head angle. The 75 V2 had same rake, same wheel/tire, but 73° head angle and 55 mm trial. Probably more trail for the touring application.

john hawrylak

Metacortex

Thanks for the link on the WV and V2 forks. The forks are definitely model 1206's from the eyelet placement of the DO. It is good to know the forks are Cr-Moly, putting them in a similiar league as the 531 forks (Cr-Moly versus Mg-Moly).

2 Questions
1 Would the Tange model number be stamped on the fork or steerer tube. 12 yearsago, I had the fork out but do not remember any stampings.

2 Do you know what the stays were made of, Cr-Moly or 1020 steel?

Metacortex

I currently have a WV with an Oct. '73 frame (3Kxxxx) that is disassembled and the fork is marked with a 2H (Aug. '72) date code. There was another faint circular mark on there, but it doesn't look like a Tange logo or model number.

I don't have any verification but I think they are CrMo. I say that because I always thought that the WV/VII was the equivelant of the Panasonic Touring Deluxe, and that bike has CrMo stays.

john hawrylak

Metacortex

Thanks for the reply. I looked at links to the Panasonic Touring Deluxe and agree the components are much closer to the WV/VII than the Touring model. I just wonder why Schwinn did not advertise the WV/VII as such. Perhaps to minimize competition with the Paramount.

EdgewaterDude

Sorry to bump this thread, but I have a question.

So I swapped out my 27" wheels with 1.25" tires (32mm) to some 700C with 25mm tires.

Being that we discussed this bike's trail (53mm), would my moving to narrower tires have a noticeable impact on handling?

I want to know if it's in my head or not. I feel like the bike is now super twitchy and all over the road if I'm not being careful. With the 1.25" tires I could ride no handed without a care. I tried the same thing today, and it was much more difficult.

What gives?

john hawrylak

Edgewater Dude

Thanks for bumping the thread. I used Jim G'ds trail calculator (https://yojimg.net/bike/web_tools/trailcalc.php) to calculate the trials for your 2 whell/tire sizes assuming a 73° and 71° head angles.
630-32 trail & flop (old) 622-25 trial & flop(new)
73° 54mm & 15mm 51mm & 14mm
71° 67mm & 21mm 63mm & 19mm

The 25mm tires reduced trial by 3 to 4 mm and reduced wheel flop by 1 to 2 mm. If you have a 73° head angle the smaller trail should have increased overall stability. The 71° angle already had lots of trial, but a reduced could decrease overall stability.

I sent you an Jan Heine article SuperLJ sent me where Heine explains how a change in trail could increase or decreas overall stability. Note his graph shows a trial of 54mm, your 630-32 value, as being on the point where a reduction in trial (your going from 630 to 622) increases overall stability.

Hope this helps

EdgewaterDude

Hi John - Why the two different head tube angles? Further upthread you had confirmed that this bike has a 73 degree head tube angle.

Thats interesting that you note that my stability should have increased. Perhaps I'm simply still getting adjusted to the feel of the bike with skinnier tires. Like I said, the bike is a lot more nervous and twitchier now.

john hawrylak

Edgewater

I did not realize you swap the tires on the WV. With a 73° head angle, lower trail should improve stability.

Perhaps the reduced pneumatic trial with the 700-25 is what you are feeling. Also, Heine mentions higher tire pressure reduces pnuematic trial. If possible, lower the tire pressure to see if it improves.

pastorbobnlnh 

No luck with borrowing the Olympus thickness guage yet. I'll keep you posted

While my '75 Voyageur II is still a work in progress, but it will run 700c 35mm wheels and tires. Should I have any concerns with handling?

john hawrylak

Bob

I do not think so. I calculated the trial and wheel flop for the VoyII head angle for 27” wheels from 29 to 32 mm and 700 from 28 thru 35, see table below (all values in mm).

Sch Design Pt
Wheel 630 630 622 622 622
Tire 29 32 28 32 35
Trail 53.3 54.2 51.7 53.0 53.9
Flop 14.9 15.2 14.5 14.8 15.1

The Schwinn Design Point of 630x32 (27 x 1-1/4) is shown for reference. The 700x35 has a lower trial than the design point by 0.2 mm which may be hard to detect. Additionally, the wider 35mm tire increases pneumatic trial a small amount. Based on this, I would not expect a problem.

Also, try using the tire pressure for a 15% tire deflection for the 700x35 tires for a given rider weight and a 30# bike weight (close to the V2)

Your Weight (#) Front Pres (psig) Rear Pres (psig)
150 46 57
175 53 65
200 60 74

to get maximum pneumatic trial. This is from Jan Heine article on optimum tire pressure. Can send you an Excel file if you like. Send me an e-mail.