1981 Schwinn Le Tour Salvage Project

[kostnerave]

Here are some pictures of my latest project, a 1981 Schwinn Le Tour Tourist in Blue. This bike was in pretty rough shape and became a bit of a challenge for me. It came to me with a poorly installed bent up bottle cage, which did quite a bit of paint damage to the seat tube. I found a cool Shimano decal which covered most of it. The front Bluemel fender was cracked with two broken struts. I trimmed off the damaged section and rerivited the brace. Both of the Cat Eye reflectors were broken, so I replaced them. Everything else was rebuilt including the pedals and rear derailleur. I installed new tires, tubes, rim strips, brake shoes, inner control cables and a nice pair of correct Schwinn cushion grips I had in my stash. I have to admit that the bike shifts smoothly and rides great! I'll probably put this on craigslist for 175.00, less than I have in it. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Thanks, Mike

 

[Eric Amlie]

Bike looks great! It will make a nice ride for someone.
Hard to imagine that you have less than $175 in it.

 

[juvela]

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beautiful job you have done with it.

cannot recall seeing previously a LeTour Tourist; what years were they offered?


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[Schwinn Sales West]

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beautiful job you have done with it.

cannot recall seeing previously a LeTour Tourist; what years were they offered?


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It was the perfect bike to replace the Suburban model. But the market wanted Sport Models at that point. "WE" dealers converted most of our Tourist models to Sports so they would sell. My bet is today, you would still find Sport Model Le Tour's "with the wrong decals", which would start another CABE conspiracy theory. LOL

John

 

[GTs58]

It was the perfect bike to replace the Suburban model. But the market wanted Sport Models at that point. "WE" dealers converted most of our Tourist models to Sports so they would sell. My bet is today, you would still find Sport Model Le Tour's "with the wrong decals", which would start another CABE conspiracy theory. LOL

John

For 1982 it looks like Schwinn just changed the name from Suburban to World Tourist. Offered in a 3-5-10 speed.

 

[Schwinn Sales West]

For 1982 it looks like Schwinn just changed the name from Suburban to World Tourist. Offered in a 3-5-10 speed.

It was pretty much "all different". The Le Tours were really nice Japanese National/Panasonic built bikes.

The Worlds started out at Giant "way before" they figured out how to build quality bicycles. Schwinn exported Frank Brilando their head engineer to live at Giant to teach them "how to build bicycles" to meet Schwinn quality standards.

The absolute worst ever was the Maroon Worlds that faded to the white primer coat while still in the Schwinn Dealer's front windows. We replaced hundreds of frames and forks.

As history will show, Giant figured it out and did a great job with quality. They built millions of bikes for Schwinn.

John

 

[juvela]

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had a first year Giant built World come through me workshop

the precision technicians at Giant had constructed it with one seat stay about twelve mm longer than the other

disequal seat stay lengths is one of the more difficult problems to deal with via cold setting...


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[DrRumack80]

That LeTour Tourist came out great! For $175, someone will get a fine commuter

Giant had some quality control issues early on for sure. The right front canti stud on this '84 Sierra was welded on a bit higher than the left. As a result, the pad on that side hits the rim at an awkward angle. It works well enough, but the pad wears prematurely. Had another '84 Sierra with a head badge that was riveted on off center

 

[juvela]

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wrt Formosan QC & trainin' -

had a friend who worked for the cycle manufacturer there called Wheel King about mcmlxix-mcmlxx

he explained to me that in the culture of the island it is very poor manners to tell someone they have made an error or done something incorrectly

this makes training/improvement very difficult from western perspective

it is necessary to be creative and explain things in such a way that they think they have figured it out for themselves

when he left the island to come home to the U.S. he received a couple of top-of-the line DB chromo frames from the company to bring home with him

he phoned me one day to say he was putting one of them together and he could not get the bottom bracket cups they gave him for the bike to start to thread in

he brought frame and cups over to my place and we discovered that they had fitted him out with Sugino metric thread cups


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[kostnerave]

Bike looks great! It will make a nice ride for someone.
Hard to imagine that you have less than $175 in it.

I do! I'm willing to take a loss for someone to have a good bike.