I apologize in advance for misusing any terms or part names; I'm pretty new to this.

I have a 1981 LeTour 4that was my dad's for a long time, and I decided to take it in when he was going to get rid of it. A few years ago I converted it to a single speed, and the ratio is 52:18, but I wanted to change out the chain ring to make the hills near me easier to tackle. After remoing the crank arm, it looks like the chainring is attached to it and unable to be removed. From what I can tell, my only options are 1) get a new crankset that allows me to swap out the chainring, 2) get a new crankset with the chainring built into it like this one, or 3) bolt a 36t chainring onto this one and set the chain on the 36t, ignoring the 52t.

I tried adding pictures to the post, but the forum won't let me do that since I'm new. Does anyone have knowledge or experience with this bike or situation?

welcome to Bike Forums

I had a similar issue and went BIG

Barry

Could you tackle it from the other end and fit a larger rear cog, say 21T or 24T? A 52/24 gear would be the same as a 39/18.

While you can't embed images in your posts as a new user (or post links or make more than 5 total posts daily - all of these are anti-Spam measures which go away after you have a certain number of posts), you can create a personal album in your user profile and post images there. Let the forum know you've done that and someone will post the images on your behalf.

Pretty sure the late 1970s/early 1980s Le Tours used a Takagi or Shimano crankset like the one in this eBay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256089756964

If that's the crank you have, I'm reasonably sure the outer chainring is indeed permanently swaged onto the DS crank and is non-replaceable.

I would suggest getting a new crankset that allows the ring to be replaced, if for no other reason that you might decide you want a different ratio some year in the future. The first time you only replace the ring the higher cost of the crankset will be made up for.

Be smart about this replacement and do the chainline measuring and BB length determination before buying if at all possible. Andy