Pete Brissing’s 1971 Schwinn Paramount
1971 Schwinn Paramount P-13
This is the Schwinn P-13 from 1971. The “P” stood for Paramount, Schwinn’s luxury group of American made bicycles.
In the ’60’s and early ’70’s it was a little tough to get your hands on a proper racing bike. Most of the real bike shops in this country were located in big cities. The internet wasn’t around, and mail order shopping took a lot of effort. Schwinn dealers, however, could be found in lots of smaller cities and towns, and Schwinn’s Paramount division offered some real high performance bikes. No need to try to import Italian or French racing frames and then scrounge for parts when you could simply pick a Paramount that suited your racing style and budget.
This chrome beauty belonged to our friend Pete Brissing. Pete knows great racing bikes, and this was one of his favorites.
The 13 is the designation for the racing model. No 27 inch wheels on this one, nope. It came with 700c tubular rims and sew-up tires. The original gearing set up was all racing as well. The little chainring up front wasn’t really little at 49 teeth. The rear wheel had a freewheel that resembled a pine cone, with Pete employing a gear range of only 13 to 17 teeth.
Elegant front end
No cages to mar the decals
Seat tube detail
Record brakes
Vintage gearing
Brooks saddle
The lack of a water bottle cage seems like some old-school bike racing thing. “Yeah, back in the ’70’s we didn’t drink water when we raced. Water was too heavy.” Actually, water bottle cages would typically have been bolted around the down tube in the normal spots. The owner of this bike just didn’t want to mess up the lovely Paramount decals than run along the tube. For the sake of style he carried a bottle in his jersey pocket.