1988 Schwinn Prologue TT
Part Diary, Part Technical Manual, Part Tips & Tricks

I've been a little bored lately with standard road and mountain bikes, so on June 16, 2012, I picked up another late 80s "funny bike". For a middle-aged non-racer, these are the most ridiculous bikes to own, yet I really like them. It's the second funny bike that I've owned, after the Bianchi Krono that I sold late last year, but this one is even more ridiculous because it uses an even smaller 24" front wheel as opposed to the standard crazy 650c front wheel. But it was a NOS frameset with wheels offer that I could not pass up. The original owner used to be the Schwinn sales representative, when Talbot's in San Mateo used to sponsor the Peninsula Velo Cycling Club. He recalls bringing over about 20 of these framesets for the Pen Velo racers to use, but somehow this one was left over and never got built up.

After bringing the bike home, I realized these bikes have a lot of high quality details. Besides the high-end Tange Prestige tubing, it features crisp lugwork, forged Tange dropouts, chromed frame and fork underneath the paint, a gracefully bending seatstay detail where it touches the top tube, and nice diamond shaped water bottle braze-ons. Actually, 1988 was a very strong year for the Schwinn product line, they had the 50th year anniversary Paramount model at the top with black paint and a gold plated fork. Next was the Prologue, both road and TT versions, a new Aluminum road frame, and the Circuit which featured the full Shimano Sante gruppo.

6/28/2012 - After buying the Hujsak pursuit frame, I decided I only needed one funny bike, so I ended up selling everything on eBay.

Here are the specs:

Frame: 1988 Schwinn Prologue TT, 58cm, English BB, 126mm spacing, red, white, and blue fade. Serial Number: 8A04983. Headbadge is stamped 3347, I'm told by the original owner that the last 7 indicates that the frameset was made in 1987. Tange Prestige double butted tubing.
Fork: 1988 Schwinn Prologue TT, 1" threaded, Tange blades, red.
Front Rim: Araya Aero 4, 24", 32h, super hard anodized.
Front Hub: Shimano Dura-Ace.
Rear Rim: Araya Aero 4, 700c, 32h, super hard anodized.
Rear Hub: Shimano Dura-Ace, 126mm spacing.
Headset: Tange Falcon Alloy No. FL500, 1" threaded, silver.