1986 Red Schwinn Traveller

This one turned out to be about a perfect fit for me, so I decided to turn it into my daily rider bike. I wanted a simple 1x10 hill climber that would be good on the hills here in Driftless Wisconsin. The lugged steel frame also made it compliant (flexy as a wet noodle) and comfortable so this frame was a perfect fit. I wanted a modern drivetrain though, so this one took some problem solving to cobble together parts that were never meant to fit together. Step one was to replace the bottom bracket with something more modern. I went with the trusty (and cheap) IXF two peice with external bearings, these are under $75 and surprisingly good for the money. This also meant I had to go with a 4-bolt 104 BCD mountain bike sprocket, which was perfect for building a hill climber, this makes it easy to find smaller chainrings - I went with a 44 tooth, For the fork I got really, really lucky. While browsing forum boards I found someone selling a 1" Ritchey carbon fork for $50! I had not intended to replace the steel fork, but sometimes fate just drops a good deal in your lap and it is too tempting so I went with a carbon fork on a 35+ year old steel frame.

After researching around a bit I decided to go with a Microshift Advent X drivetrain for this bike. This is technically a gravel groupset with a clutched derailleur so I thought it would be perfect for the beat up roads we have out here. Compared with the more common Shimano and SRAM groupsets these are less than half the price (or at least they were...) and I have nothing but praise for it. I have ridden the heck out of this bike and the groupset has never missed a beat. I plan on using more Microshift in the future for sure. Fitting this modern groupset to this ancient frame was not without it's challenges though. This bike originally came with a Suntour groupset and derailleur hanger which would not work with the modern Microshift components. The closest derailleur hanger I could find with the right thread pattern had the screw hole on the wrong side. There was not enough "meat" on the dropout to drill and tap a hole for it, so I had to find another way to make it work. In order for the hanger to function correctly it has to be prevented from rotating. To accomplish this I decided to braze a peice of keystock into the opening that would fit perfectly into the dropout slot when the wheel is slid into place. This makes taking the wheel on and off a little more difficult because the skewer has to be completely removed before the wheel can come off. Aside from this problem though, it has worked perfectly for years and proved to be a good solution to adapt any derailleur to any frame with the old style dropouts. You do however, need to make sure it is straight when assembled, which can require filing the dropout to be perfectly flush on the outside.

The other problem whas shoehorning a 135mm 10 speed hub into dropouts spaced for 126mm 6-speed components. This however is where these old steel frames shine. With a little heat and stretching you can pretty easily make it fit, just make sure to check that both sides "stretched" the same amount and the frame is still straight. An easy low tech way to check this is to set a broomstick against the head tube and seat tube running back to the dropout. You can do this on both sides and compare how far off this line each dropout is to work then until you have them where you want them. It's not space age laser straight but it definitely works.

This seat and bars were not the first I fitted but they are the ones it will keep. I am a big fan of Ritchey components so I went with a Ritchey seat that I love - this is my favorite seat and may make it's way on to the Trek Domane that has now become my daily rider. For bars and stem I went with an integrated carbon bar and stem combo with Ritchey tape. It's a 110mm stem integrated into nice flat aero dropbars. I really like the aerobars because they offer a nice flat surface on the top that helps my palms from going numb on long rides (something that came in very handy with this bike!) For brakes I wanted to go with Shimano 105 rim calipers because they have equal length pivots for both sides- this makes for much better feel on rim brakes. However the Shimanos proved not only hard to find but expensive now that everything has switched to disc brakes and because I built this bike in 2020 when components dried up. After some searching I found a set of these "R700" calipers that are an identical knock off of the Shimano 105's. I usually never buy knock off parts but I could not find genuine Shimanos anywhere and these were available and priced right so I took a chance. They are not as good as the original but still work great and I still have them fitted despite having an Ultegra set in my parts bin now.

I really love how this bike turned out, I didn't actually repaint it. I just touched up the red where I could and used a gold paint pen to fix the decals. It looks super sharp now. The second pic is the first seat and grips I fitted, I did not like the orange grips at all, they had a very abrasive texture that would rub my hands raw on long rides.

The pics below were from a 100 mile century ride I did on this bike right after building it. I went from Gays Mills to Boscobel, then Prairie Du Chein and then along the river up Hwy 35 to Lacrosse. It was a beautiful ride but I highly recommend routing around HWY 35 between Prairie du Chein and Ferryville that road has little shoulder and is beat to hell. Overall the bike performed flawlessly. I covered 104 miles in 7.5 hrs averaging 13.8mi/hr. I was not in a rush but it's still a decent time for the amount of hills around here.

I still own this bike and may never sell it. I have since replaced it with a Trek Domane as my daily rider, but if I have to travel for work or vacation this is the bike I take just because I don't have to worry about it. Modern carbon and aluminum frames are faster, more rigid and better in almost every measurable way, but there is something about these old lugged steel frames that keeps me coming back to them. They are very comfortable, affordable and bomb-proof reliable.