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thecabe.com
You have a lot of different things going on with this bike. 24" wheels with 36 spoke rims, 6 1/2" crank in place of a 5 1/2" crank on a 24" wheel frame. But the thing that has me wondering the most is what is going on with the lower head bearing? It looks like it has two lower cones on the fork stem? A 24" frame has a shorter head tube than a 26" frame and this requires a much different spring fork. The fork in the bike looks modified to fit the short head tube. Maybe it's the photo angle, but it looks like something is off. The Schwinn 24" beach cruisers of the 1980's used a mixture of parts, including a fork with longer legs.
Not to my knowledge.
We sold a lot of Tri Bikes at our dealership in the 1960's and 70's, since we were located close to a very large retirement community, Sun City, AZ. In the early days of tri bikes, they were all sold and assembled as conversion kits. Men's, and Ladies frames, 20", 24", and 26", Middleweight, and Lightweight width wheels, we tried it all. This has nothing to do with Schwinn tri bike models which did not even exist at this point. By far, the best compromise was a lady's frame for safe mounting. The 24"-wheel size placed the bike lower to the ground for better stability making it at least harder to turn over. And the lightweight wheels were the best choice for the higher air pressure helping offset the harder rolling resistance of having three tires on the ground. We sold Gobby tri bikes and conversion kits, and Ret Bar tri bikes and conversion kits. Ret Bar eventually landed the Schwinn tri bike contract and built the back half of the Town and Country model. Gobby landed the Sears tri bike contract. The two companies were located only ten miles apart and both sold thousands of tri bikes nationally. The double wall S-5 or S-6 rims proved to be very strong from the wheel "side loads" experienced on a tri bike. Any time the Grand Kids got to ride a tri bike on "two wheels", Grand Ma had a repair bill to pay. The "single purpose built" single bar tri bikes had even better stability than a Schwinn "conversion kit" Town and Country model.
In the 50's starting in 1955 the springer had the pivot bolt thru the fork legs and the crowns and legs were painted. In the 60's the springer was just an option or an accessory at the stores until 1963 when the Jaguar came standard with a springer. And these were all chrome, no paint. The one on that pictured bike looks like the 1960's piece.
