Welcome here. I had one of those, I think the frame says Tom Kellog or something on it... Nice solid bike. I think mine was 3x6=18 speeds.

Univega is an interesting story.

Ok, I tried to take a bunch of pictures of the vital areas:

You bought a good solid bike, one that you can have for the next few decades. I buy & sell bikes for hobby money. Have had a few Univega hybrids come through my hands. One problem with the Shimano trigger shifters is that they were greased with white grease from the factory. This will dry out into a gummy mess. Shifters no work. I get bikes cheap this way. Tear down & clean the shifters, and they work fine.

Like the looks of a drop bar hybrid. It's not a little project. Ride yours stock for a while & see how you like it. Sell it & buy something else if it doesn't work for you.

*EDIT*

Yours is a 21 speed with a Bert Lawee designed frame. Trash that chain. That's a great buy.

The bike appears to be in very good condition. The drivetrain is Suntour XCM 7spd indexed. Should work as well as early Shimano SIS 7spd. First thing is to make sure the bike frame fits....appears to be a 23" frame...fit someone who is 6 ft+ and 34" inseam.

Conversions are definitely possible, and sometimes can be done within budget, if you shop wisely, and start with the right candidate. Here's my 94 Schwinn Crosscut. Also bought it for $20, and the final result came in a bit over $100. She's one of my favorite rides.

Before:

Schwinn Crosscut by WNG555, on Flickr

After:

2012-05-04 -001 by WNG555, on Flickr

Yea, it is a bit big for me, I'm 5'9", but I'm going to work around that for now. For now I will get it running properly and see how I like it and I will go from there. I love to tinker with things that I know nothing about.

I really want to thank you all again, you guys are a wealth of knowledge

my advice is straighten out that seat, point it forward and make it level. can't believe this slipped by all the experts so far.

Haha, yea I fixed it after I took the pictures.

I measured the stem on my similar Univega frame and it is 22.2 mm, which is a standard road size quill stem. Yours is probably the same, but you'll have to measure to be certain. Yours also has the brake cable hanger built into the stem, so if you replace the stem, you will need some other kind of cable hanger (usually hanging off the headset or attached to the fork crown bolt hole), or a type of brake that doesn't use one.

Got the chain changed out today after some instruction from the guy at the local shop, I also picked up a small air pump. After getting the tires all aired up I went out for a short spin.....wooooo my legs hurt

Running 5 miles every other day for PT didn't come close to a 30 minute ride, and it felt great.

The bike designer is Ben Lawlee. I have one of his mountain bikes is the same crackle paint as this Activa.

WNG's CrossCut is one of my favorite conversions. If it were mine, that is what I would shoot for. A hybrid with drop bars is similar to a modern cyclocross bike.

You clearly have the cardio conditioning to easily ride for 30 minutes. That your legs hurt that much is a good indication you are staying in too high of a gear. Switch to a lower gear and get your cadence up. You should be pedaling at about 90 revs a minute. That way you will be using your heart and lungs and saving your legs.

Don't you mean "Switch to a lower gear"? High gear=low cadence unless you are extremely strong. Spinning in a low gear is the way to save the legs.

You should not try to make that hybrid bike with flat bars into a road bike with drop bars. It is possible, but not worth it, and the results will not be good.

I just took up riding last fall and started on Bianchi Advantage that had been converted to drop bars. It was a very comfortable ride. And unless you're jumping right into racing, the hybrid gearing should be fine. Unless you're getting into cruising speeds above the mid 30s. (I don't know if the cost of the conversion would be worth it as I bought the bike cheap off CL in it's already converted state. But in terms of results, I thought the converted hybrid made for a very nice ride. Trying to decide now if I should keep it as an N+1 or resell it. )

It is Friday. Apparently my brain has already taken off for the weekend. Yes, I will fix that.

I really like that bike. It's a sound platform for modding.