Restoring a ~1980 Schwinn Traveler Bicycle

19 Aug 2016

Catalog photo of 1980 Schwinn Traveler, from bikehistory.org. I’m pretty sure bike this is the bike I restored.

Dad’s old bicycle had been rotting away in garages for a few decades and I made a project of restoring it back to its former glory. I had never really had any interest in bicycles before, so it required a lot of synthesizing information from old forums and YouTube tutorials.

The bike itself is a ~1980 Schwinn Traveler. It is nothing fancy, just a budget road bike as far as I can tell. It has a 1020 carbon steel frame that is 30+ pounds, pretty dang heavy.

But I didn’t need anything amazing. I was just looking for (1) something to keep me occupied during the summer break, and (2) a possible alternative transportation mode for when I went back to college in the fall. Plus, I liked the look of the bike quite a bit. The red and chrome is cool and feels “vintage”.

Bicycle after being restored.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do much documentation during the project. I’ll just include the few notes and photos I have here.

Some of what I did:

• Replaced tubes and tires
• Replaced the wheel ball bearings and grease
• Replaced the handle bar tapes
• Replaced one of the wheel axles
• Lubricated the freewheel
• Took the bike apart and cleaned nearly every piece to remove dirt, rust, etc.

Photos throughout the process.

Best “before” photo I have

Rusty.

Looking at the freewheel.

Replacing the ball bearings and grease of wheel hub.

Replacement for wheel axle.

Overview of bike restoration in progress.

Post restoration, with my other red vehicle.