Iron Horse Classic 40 Year Anniversary

I knew there were some things I would have to do to get ready, like rebuilding the bike and learning how to ride the road again.

The bike, a 1968 Schwinn Paramount, was completely in pieces and hadn't been ridden since 1975. I had repainted it then, but never reassembled it. The frame is double butted Reynolds 531 and weighs 3 pounds. The bike always fit me like a glove and handled beautifully. I couldn't find one of the boxes of parts which had the original Campangolo components, so I had to swap out some of the components. The beloved Brooks Pro saddle was given up to save some weight. I couldn't find the original down tube shifters, so went with the barcons. The original Campy Record crankset was 51-44. The smallest chainring available then was 44T. The largest freewheel cog in those days was 26 teeth. That meant a low gear of only 46". Five cogs were normal on a freewheel back then. Even though I did a lot of climbing out of the saddle, not being able to have lower gear back then lead

My 1968 Schwinn Paramount on Molas Pass

to me suffering severe knee injuries for many years. Still recovering from a recent knee injury, I wanted to make sure I had adequately low gears for the passes. So, Mountain Tamer Quad to the rescue. I set it up with 48-38-28-18 and 13-14-15-16-17-19-22. This gave me a gear range from 22" to 98" with close gear spacing. I wanted a 12T cog on the freewheel for one higher gear, but had to work with what I could get in the available time. I went with 180 mm cranks, which I'll explain later. The accessories are modern so look a little out of place. The tires are 700C x 20mm clinchers. The bike weighs 23.4 pounds. That was pretty respectable in 1971, but not by today's standards.

The bike was originally metallic blue. When I repainted it in 1975, I wanted a color scheme that was different from any thing else. I added the cable lugs and guides. The original shifters were on the down tube. I plan on switching out the handlebars for different ones. When I do I have some nice vintage yellow handle bar tape to wrap them. When I find the rest of the Campangolo components, I'll probably put them back on too. The important thing for this event was to try to keep the bike as vintage as I could, but the main goal was to get up and running reliably.
I was able to find the original Schwinn decals, but couldn't get them shipped in on time. I'll have to add them later. The Schwinn Paramount was the primiere US made, road bike at that time. It's really great to have it running again.

I also decided I should use the same shoes I wore the first year of the race, as well. Few would dare to ride these shoes today. Once you tighten the toestraps on these shoes, your feet will not come out of the clips unless you release the straps. Some lessons in life are not easily forgotten. I would not have any problem remembering to release the strap. They were pretty tight. I had to soak them and put shoe stretchers in them. They were still pretty tight.

This is my helmet from the early '70s.
It would be illegal in a race today.

Another challenge was that I had not ridden a road bike since 1977, being as I have been a die-hard mountain biker since then. Riding 20mm tires after running big fat mountain bike tires was a little unnerving for a while. I watch every rock and crack in the road. I would have to relearn what used to be second nature. Could I come anywhere close to my time in the first race when I was 34 years younger?

I didn't have the road bike finished so had to train on one of my mountain bikes. The Sandia Crest highway is pretty good for training with its sustained climbing and 10678' top elevation. I decided to ride from the house to the top of the Crest and back. As I was climbing, I marked my time for the climb. In 1977 on my final race I had done the climb in 1:03 and won first place. On this day, at 1:03 into the climb, I wasn't even half way up the climb. I decided to do the best I could anyway. The ride was 55 miles and I felt good about it. I wanted to go to Durango a week or two before the race to train and acclimate. Conditions at the time prevented that. So a week ahead of the race I finally had the bike ready and headed up the Crest. The climbing was considerably easier on the road bike. This time at 1:03 I was much further up the mountain, but still 3 miles from the top. I had planned to ride the last 6 miles of climbing 2 or 3 times. It was a chilly day and I had only a light wind breaker. As I started back down the mountain, I started shivering so much that I was making the bike shake all over. After a couple of miles, I turned around and went back up to build back some body heat. I headed down again. Now the wind was whipping me all over the road. The skinny tires don't have the inertia that mtb tires have so I was having to reign it in, especially through the switchbacks. I got up to 40 mph a couple times and I was having to force myself to do that. Memories of the crash I had doing 65 mph when I was 15 were trying to haunt me. I know I told myself "You can do this." numerous times. It was very comfortable doing 45 on the mountain bike on the trip before. I would definitely need to get more practice before the race. Would I ever be comfortable taking it up to 60-65 mph like I used to?