dddd

I've usually been one to tighten up a touring bike's gearing to suit the limited bulk of my foothills riding, and which doesn't detract from the goodness of a sport-tourer's geometry, tire clearance and toughness.
I never much liked a 14-17t gap in my freewheel gearing though, so I think that this author missed an opportunity to upgrade to a six-speed freewheel while he was re-designing the gearing. Especially since these Schwinn's frame/hub spacing (made for their proprietary wider 5s freewheels with chain-retaining ring) had the clearance to do so.

In today's fast-moving, often internet-based world of journalism, we see quite a few journalists who have perhaps briefly gained seemingly-sufficient knowledge of various topics more through internet browsing than anything else, and this author's comment on the bike's "standard, welded") frame reminded me of so many journalists today. Not so much their fault if they take a much-needed job with time restraints on every task, and with no incentive to inform the reader of their "green-ness" on topics that they are writing about.
He had enough bike experience to make a very good point about the hubs, however, as the serious problem of very-premature (and mostly avoidable) hub cone failures on Schwinns having French-made hubs would persist clear through the 80's due to severely over-tight hub bearings (and which is why, in addition to the weak/narrow/heavy Weinmann rims, that I typically downgrade my offer on such used Schwinns).
He seems to have also ridden the bike much longer than most of today's bike write-ups would allow,so there's that!