More pictures soon. Much rust to follow.

-Kurt

Atta boy!

N+2 is cheating

How many Paramounts did you buy, again?

If every time you buy a Paramount, you buy a pair-o-mounts, would that be N+2, N*2, or N^2?

--Shannon

I’d say it’s something along the lines of N = X where X = Less money in the wallet.

Jokes aside, I’ve kept everyone in suspense for long enough. The haul are a pair of Paramounts from their original owner, ordered new in 1967 (the P14) and 1969 (the P13).









An interesting twist is that the Mack Cycle sticker on the P11 is a lot closer to home than with most other Paramounts. These both were acquired from the brother of Mary Jane Mark; current owner of this historic, family owned Schwinn dealership that remains a very active and popular shop today. The family themselves have three chrome Paramounts and an additional two on display on the ceiling of the shop, along with many other mid-century Schwinns.

Both of these have been stored basically unused for probably as long as I’ve been alive, and their condition reflects the worst of a humid South Florida garage. The P11 is surface rusted all over the bottom and the P13 is too - helped only by the chrome. There is also the slightest top tube dent in the P13 “thanks to a pile of Wald baskets that fell on it when it was barely a week old!”




The P13 is also set up as a 1x - supposedly ordered that way, or at least dealer modified. Same for the brakes; this is set up with Campag sidepulls, identical to how I found my chrome P13 ‘70 configured when I bought it a good decade ago.



I’m so utterly swamped that I’m not sure when I can get to attacking these. They’re at least climate stabilized in the bike room for now. We’ll see. I want to finish my Cannondale ST and Raleigh Super Tourer builds first.

-Kurt

.

n!

Does that make it Camp Grenade-a?

-Kurt

P14 deserves a Sturmey Archer AM hub.

That brings up old memories for me. The Sherman family lived in oue neighborhood, and Alan's daughter, Nancy, was one of my brother's 5th grade classmates. Alan Sherman records got a lot of play time at neighborhood parties.

How about an S3X? That's what I would be inclined to put on a track bike.
On the P-13, perhaps the single sprocket works in Florida, but I would want at least a double, if not a triple, up front.

My mistake, I typed P11 for P14. It's a track bike.

I'm not 100% sure if the P13 was ordered like that or changed out at the dealership like that, but Tom said it was like that as long as he recalled, so it was most definitely set up for South Florida since day #1.

-Kurt

I am your Disciple of Dorkery.

And I am unworthy.

--Shannon

Oh my. What a haul! Some properly more vintage-y than usual Paramounts! My N+2f (for frames) Trek accumulation cannot keep up, though my dropout adjuster screws for them arrived today.

I can only aspire to be as adorkable as both of you someday. Maybe when I grow up.

If nothing else, they definitely speak to the years that have gone by don't they? Not so much time capsules as visual reminders of time gone by.

-Kurt

Wonderful haul!

I'm partial to the P14s myself. With a little cleanup, they'll look even better.

Interesting that they have the brake setup "European style" with the front brake lever on the right side. That was the common setup for fixed gear bikes and path racers in the UK.

Sheesh. No pressure here...

I'll cope by finishing more bikes before tonight's deadlines. Fortunately for now it seems crank pulling will not be one of the necessary tasks. I think. Maybe. Alas, none of them are Paramounts. Or Oneamounts.

They look like different size frames. What do the seat tubes measure ?

Holy long reach Campagnolo brake calipers batman!
I didn't know Campagnolo made long reach.
E-bay search... they don't come cheap.

These pre-dated the CPSC's brake lever orientation mandate. Makes sense; a competent rider should want the front brake on the right side to keep the left arm open for signaling.

I haven't taken a measuring tape to it, but they're probably both 24" CTT. Remember, the P14 will have a higher BB for track use. Of note, it has 170mm Record Pista cranks, not the more common 165mm.

A P13 from this era is supposed to have centerpulls and was never meant for Nuovo brakes - note the cable stop orientation on the frame vs. the brake.

When I bought my '70 chrome Paramount (an absolute duplicate of this bike) in ~2008, it's brake configuration was also nearly dead-on identical: Nuovo brakes on 700Cs with the rear drop bolt...and the caliper slots had been filed butchered almost to the bottom to reach the 700C rims. I'm betting that's the case here too.





The mess above was properly re-configured with the Schwinn-marked Dia-Compe centerpulls and Weinmann levers paired to 27" rims, even though I've never been a fan of said centerpulls:







-Kurt

Well, that’s a nice surprise. No butchery to the Nuovo caliper.



The projects are piling up.



-Kurt

I think that Technium 1000 has gone off the front of the "Project" group and is soloing for the Recycle Bin prime... What's the plan for getting a headset into that thing? And how in the Nine Nethermost Hecks did it get that way?

--Shannon

It's well down in the queue for a build video along with a number of the recent acquisitions - I figure the violence to straighten that one out deserves to be captured in 4K.

Since it was one of the stored LBS frames, I assume it had a huge fall supplemented by a number of heavy boxes on top of that. Alternatively, it might have had a significant amount of weight placed against it - perhaps with the headtube against the ground and a pile of things on top of it.

The chrome Paramount has a slight dent in the top tube, incidentally. It has an interesting story.

-Kurt