Well, I think I have it finished, after a couple of iterations. The last piece was swapping wheelsets with RobbieTunes.

As received (bought it off ebay). Notice the complete lack of packing material, chain rings speared the box, as did both fork drop outs. One wheel is wrapped around the front fork, which unfortunately scraped up the paint quite a bit. Rear dropouts were pinched as well:




The first temporary build after fixing the dropouts, was a combination of tri-color and Sante.



For the final build, I went ahead and used up the nine speed Ultegra group I had on the shelf, plus a Tiagra nine speed compact crankset and the Bontrager Race wheelset from Robbie.




Typical thrifty bill build, combination of trade stock, take offs from prior flips, and some spares off the shelf = new ride. The unusual part was buying a bike shipped off ebay. I had sworn that off after the last shipping debacle. But I wanted a Prologue road bike really bad, so I went for it. I need to lower the stem a bit yet.


thrifty bill

Outstanding subject and work! That is actually one of the few Schwinns that peaks my interest.

Looks great! My first thought was that white hoods and bottle cages might look better, but I think that the black works with the wheels and spokes much better.
Great job!
How does it ride?

I'll take it out in the morning. It rode great with the temporary wheelset I had on it (before the trade with Robbie). I went back and forth on the bottle cages. Decided with the black rims and hubs, that black looked the best (out of what I had in hand of course).

+1 The Schwinn Prologue is one of those really nice Schwinns, that was on my short list. Took me two years to find one my size, at a realistic (thrifty bill) price.

I've got a red Chris King headset take off I have thought about putting on this bike. Unfortunately, the Chris King red is almost burgundy, which I don't think will look that good on this bike.

I think that the chome headset looks better than red. One the other hand you might need one of these under your top tube (in red, of course) :

Very nice build with a stunning color scheme and contrast. Modern upgrade parts seem to compliment well. It's unfortunate how some people cannot grasp proper packing techniques much less common sense. I have been very reluctant to look into frame-sets or whole bikes on Ebay because of this problem.

Good Job!

Bill,

Awesome, awesome bike. I look up to your thrifty ways, I am looking high and low for a donor bike for my '88 Circuit. I decided I'm going to do a full upgrade on it once the donor bike comes along (prays to bike gods).

Cheers, and let us know how the ride is.
-Mike

congrats, great build

Looks even better in person. He is really going to like the ride. You can't quite tell in the photos, but those tires have a red stripe between the gumwall ad the face tread. The bike is a subtle, elegant example of a bike that is as much modern as anything not plastic, and rides as well as bikes costing 3x as much. Plus, it looks better...

Funny you should mention that pump. One of these exact pumps, in red, came with the bike. I need to put it back on. Its probably the only reason the top tube didn't get dinged on shipment.

Low spoke count and gum walls...

I love it

Unusual tires (at least to me). They were a set of take-offs I had from a flip bike. The red stripe is interesting. Can't see it in the full size pics.

Got into an interesting conversation with one of my wife's coworkers that rides a lot. She had a vintage bike, but got rid of it so she could get modern components. I told her I just went the opposite direction: Modern components on a vintage bike.

great looking bike. I like the hint of red on the tires

Michelin tracers... haven't seen those for a while. I think that they stopped making them 6-7 years ago. Good training tire and loads of flat protection. Are they 28s?

Wow, very striking! It looked good before and after the modernization. I thought this bike is screaming out for some red highlights in the tires. And what do you know, it has it.
Congrats!

OK, I'll ask.....what's your pump doing in the freezer?

Super build, like everything about that. It ticks all the boxes.
Enjoy riding the heck out of it!
Simon

The Tracers are 700-25 size.



I use a white milk crate as a photo box for ebay items. Unfortunately, the pump was big enough that I could not edit out the box.

Hey, I'm thrifty....

Typical ebay item picture in the white plastic crate:

Bill, it looks fantastic!

I'm glad the dropouts were repairable. The shipper was a bonehead.

It beats this and serves the same purpose:

Whoa, Born slippers!

I have owned two pair of Born shoes in my life, and they were both awesome.