Originally Posted by
B. Carfree
Go here:
http://www.vintage-trek.com/SerialNumbers.htm to use the serial number to determine the year of production of older Trek bikes.
Good luck finding a 720, they have quite the following. My wife and I both tour on them.
All of the older Trek bikes have one real weakness: where the seat stays attach to the seat tube. They just didn't get enough metal in there. It's pretty, but it is the most likely place to break. Check for cracks regularly. If it does crack, no worries. Just take it to a framebuilder and have him/her replace them with a stronger configuration. It's a good time to get better spacing in the rear dropouts too. I paid about $150 to have that done on one of mine.
Good to know, and good to know what to expect as a repair cost. At that, I could probably look into getting longer seatstays done, which might be a cool option. I'll never be able to afford a $2k touring bike, but gradually building one up might be feasible.
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The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets. Christopher Morley