True but it's become something of a generic. Sort of like Kleenex and Band Aid but with out the teams of corporate lawyers to defend the copyrights.

Why change much at all other than cables and housing? You may need to take it apart, clean and regrease, replace bearings, etc. and put it back together. Here is a 1984 Schwinn Le Tour Luxe that was reconditioned. The frame had been repainted by a previous owner but everything worked perfectly. Other than time, the rehab cost very little and its an excellent bike.

Bad monitor and in too much of a rush - missed the dark small chainwheel - my bad.

Actually it does have a model name, very conspicuously on the top tube. I can make out the first two letters.

If you could post a picture of the whole bike, or just read the top tube, we could identify it. But based on what I'm seeing, it is not worth spending hundreds of dollars putting STI on this bike. The furthest i would go is to swap the down-tube shifters for bar-end shifters. Still a worthwhile improvement, IMO.

wild guess says its a 86-88 as those are the only years they put SCHWINN on the forks like that

and, ahhh, 87 was the only year with Shimano (86 had huret, 88 had suntour).

https://bikecatalogs.org/SCHWINN/1987..._Traveler.html

whack, says its indexed shifting.


hmm, the le tours in the catalog pages all show silver chainrings, the Travelers had hte black chain rings, but no Traveler had shimanos.

more le tour's here... https://bikecatalogs.org/SCHWINN/MODELS/Le%20Tour.html

LeTours came in that Scarlet color that year. Travelers were cadet (navy) blue and winter mint (celeste) Still have a Traveler frame from that True-Temper year, I think I'll get it back to natural metal and clearcoat some day. Nice, but not remarkable, frame.

I don't see any point in "upgrading" to a modern drivetrain. If he doesn't like the downtube shifters, switch to some bar-ends. New grease, bearings, pads, cables, and probably chain & freewheel. It'll be like a new bike.

clearcoated brazed steel frames are fugly. if thats the look you want, strip it, paint it bright silver and then clearcoat it. I'd say chrome plate it, but chrome plating a bicycle frame is really expensive nowdays and there's very few shops left that will do it, because the chrome process is so toxic.

^^This is the ticket, plus possibly some new Panaracers. The bike is worth putting some time and effort into, but the full "modernization" idea doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Beauty's in the eye of the beholder.

What looks less controversially fugly is when they rust under the clearcoat. I gather a frame needs to be sandblasted first, so you lose a lot of that cool heat discolouration.

But look what I found:



Imagine a bike frame TIG brazed like that... pretty sexy.

Looks to me like a LeTour. They used true temper 4130 DB cromoly for a period of time. Late 80's-early 90's?