Recently, Cap'n Jonny brought home a 36.6 pound gold 1966 Schwinn Varsity with roached paint to use as a base for a weight weenie build he was anxious to try. In the end he just put it on a diet and did some strength training. Read about his process in his tale below.
When I stripped everything off the Varsity frame it weighed 9.4 lbs. That is about 2 lbs. heavier than any other frame I have ever weighed.
Varsities look like they have fillet brazed frames like some high end Schwinns but are actually electro-forged except for some that had brazing at the seat post to seatstay joint. My 1966 Varsity was all forged. They have heavy steel frames, wheels, handlebars, and cranks.
The original idea came when someone at the Bike Exchange gave me an adapter to convert the heavy Ashtabula crank to a more modern 3 piece unit. I figured if I was going to replace that boat anchor with a much lighter aluminum piece, I might as well replace the wheels and any other steel parts with aluminum and see how much weight I could lose.
I could have removed the heavy steel kickstand but not the cylinder it was housed in as that is welded to the chain stays. In any case, I like kickstands and bikes we donate at BikeX typically have a kickstand.
I just happened to have a couple cans of Rustoleum Rose Gold Metallic that I bought for another build but didn't use so that was to be the color of this ‘66 Varsity Schwinn. A couple hours with the scraper and sand blaster and the bike was clean and ready for paint. I applied coats of clean metal primer and a top coat and it was looking good.
When I installed the bottom bracket converter however, it was obvious that it was too wide and none of the spindles I had would fit so I went back to the original one piece Schwinn part. When I installed the V/O Porteur bars I realized that the tubing was the right size for the Shimano bar end shifters but too large for any brake levers I had. Another trip to the shop parts bin produced a set of old school Weinmann levers that were also too small but I was able to re bend the clamps so that they would just fit.
The bike now weighs 32.6 pounds. The new wide range Shimano Hyperglide 6 speed freewheel should allow it to navigate any hills around here and while certainly still not a lightweight, it is now more manageable. It could have lost another pound with a lighter crank and maybe another couple with a lightweight saddle, lighter wheels, and lighter tires, but I am satisfied that in its present iteration it will make someone a good all-rounder.
