jaunt

well i think its strange anyway, from what ive been reading about these bikes. i recently stumbled upon an all original mint condition le tour, it is a 89 model year as indicated by the date stamp. i've read on BF that the later le tour's were made in mississippi, however mine is marked "made in japan schwinn approved" and has a 1020 steel sticker on it as well. werent the late le tour's chromoly and not 1020? can anyone clear this up for me?

alanbikehouston

Schwinn used the "Le Tour" name on a wide variety of bikes, made in Japan, the USA, and Taiwan. Perhaps if you post a photo of your bike, someone can match it to the appropriate Schwinn catalog. There are links in a recent Schwinn catalog thread in "Vintage" to websites that have many/most Schwinn catalogs from the 1970 to 1995 era.

If you describe the components on your bike (brake levers, brake calipers, shifters, gear changers, hubs, rims) that would also pin down the year of your bike.

The little bit of info you have given sounds more like 1979 than 1989.

well biked

Somethin' ain't right. I don't think you have an '89. What components? How many cogs in back? Stem shifters? Downtube shifters? Centerpull brakes? Sidepulls? Forged or stamped dropouts?

jaunt

its got centerpull brakes, stem shifters, sugino super maxy crank. its a beautiful color, metallic silver with red/white lettering, half polished fork, polished crowns.

i think i just read the date code wrong, or the wrong number completely :rofl:

'0561' i think is the correct date stamp, so this would be 1981 correct? its starting to make sense now

Pompiere

1981 makes more sense for those components.

mike

GENERALLY speaking, the Japanese made Le Tour was a nice bike. If you have one in good condition, you are lucky.

I think what is happening at my house is a testiment to the Le Tour. I have a garage full of ALL kinds of vintage bikes from ballooners to rode bikes and everything in-between. We have all kinds of road bikes too from shiny chrome rich Schwinn Varsitys/Continentals to Bottechia and Zebra and Raleigh, and several models of Peogeot, etc. Our garage looks like a bicycle store with all bikes in well-maintained and clean riding condition.

You name it, we have it. My teenage son and his large group of friends have full access to all of the bikes to take home and use at will. The boys make liberal use of the bicycles and use them as their primary transportation.

ALL the boys want the Japanese made Super Le Tour. They take turns using it. It is coveted by my son and all the boys know that it is HIS machine and available only by special permission.

I think this is one of the best testiments to the Japanese Le Tour quality and ride-ability. Given all the choices of vintage 10-speed rides from about 1965 to about 1986 of a great variety of brands and models, the boys choose the Le Tour hands down for their transportation.

MrCoffee

That's very interesting. Just to think, I had TWO LeTours, one in silver metal-flake and the other in blue metal-flake. The silver got replaced by the blue after a year due to abnormal wear and tear (I was very hard on bikes back then). The blue got stolen, it was less than a couple years old. They were nice bikes, but required considerable maintenance.

MrCoffee

well biked

Yes, I think you've got it. I've got an '82 Super le tour, made in Japan, 1020 frame, Sugino Super Maxy cranks......sounds like you have a similar bike. '83 is when all le tour models went to full chromoly frames, and as far as I know, from that point on they weren't imported from Japan but made in Greenville, Mississippi. And '79's and '80's were made in Chicago, so the Japanese models seem to be '73 thru '78, and then '81 and '82...........They're all nice riding bikes.

Scooper

Here's a LINK to the catalog page for the 1981 Le Tour. It sounds like yours is "Frosty Silver"...

jaunt

thats it, thanks

MrCoffee

Thanks for the link, Scooper. They were the exact bikes I had back then, both '81 and '82 models.

MrCoffee