I recently got a Paramount track bike with poor paint, no decals and an odd mix of parts including a road fork. I'm trying to figure out when it was made but there isn't a serial number on the dropout where I expected it to be. Don't see anything on the BB either, could there be a BB stamp that isn't showing through the paint? A friend of a friend says it could be a team bike. Any thoughts appreciated.

I would send your pictures to Waterford Precision Bikes and ask. You might get a response from Richard Schwinn himself. A Google search will find you the e-mail address. The only thing I can think of is it might have been by an employee bike or for a race team and a not for sale bike. Roger

Is this the left non drive side rear drop? The left side is where the serial number is usually placed.



The paint looks too metalic to be an original Schwinn color from the 1960s through 1979. Also, the little we can see of the fork crown reminds me of what was usually used on the road Paramounts. Here is a picture of my '71 P-13. IIRC, most of the track versions had the middle points on the side filed out. Can you take a better picture and post one of the whole frame and one of a closeup of the fork? Thanks!

An image of the seat stay top caps and seat stay bridge would help. The termination of the stays at the rear ends does not look very Schwinn like to my experience. Schwinn used a lot of brass and filed it in a flowing way, no sharp edges. They did more defined treatment of the stays after the Nervex lug era.

The rear dropout photo is the non-drive side. Here are a few more photos, I will have to get more photos this afternoon showing the whole frame and seat stay top caps.

The "friend of a friend" is Ron Boii who built frames for Schwinn, he says " It could be an Olympic team track frame ,,,just 13 of them. The time between Chicago, and Waterford left them without a shop to build, and I was it for that little while." Ron has noted the rear dropout brazing is not Chicago style. I don't have any reason to doubt Ron's insight but if this is a team frame (while being very cool) will undermine my intentions for the frame---Put as little money as possible into it (Maaco color of the day or rattle can touch up) and have fun ridding.

When did Schwinn sponsor the Olympics?

You could still do that, no? When you're done, sell it for restoration or do it yourself. Just don't drill the brakebridge, crash it it, use it as a polo bike....but team bike or not, I'd rather ride it than hang it on a wall and look at it.

So, if a team bike, it would have been for the ill fated 1980 Olympics, in Moscow, which were boycotted by USA. This might make a great deal of sense. I believe at the time the team bikes could have little if any markings on them per Olympic rules. Very few '79 Paramounts ever show up, because production had wound down for the move to Waterford. You could have a very rare bike indeed.

I'd also rather ride it than hang it on a wall. I have no $ for restoration anyway. At the very least I need to get some clincher rims to replace the tubular and address the paint enough to stop rust. Ron the frame builder might have access to shop drawings to compare geometry and other details. I will post updates as I get more info.

What does that mean?

I copied this off someone's flicker page, so this is not mine. I also came across a Paramount track fork that had a very different crown with oval windows, but I believe these were used on the pre 1958 Paramounts.



As compared to this:



Hope this helps.

Schwinn was a co-sponsor and donated custom Paramounts to the U.S. Olympic cycling teams beginning in 1956. I don't know what year the sponsorship stopped, but for sure it was after the Munich games in 1972.

Here are photos of Dave Chauner's Paramount used in Munich. Note the rounded stay treatment at the dropout which was typical. The chamfered style stay treatment on the OP's bike isn't typical.







Here's a '76 P14 showing the same rounded stay treatment.