I have been called a traveling minstrel. Does that make this bicycle a “Minstrel Cycle?” With the help of a Schwinn date code database (date-a-base?) and with Guido's explanation of the four digits lightly stamped on the head badge, I figured out that my bike was built on October 27, 1976. From now on it will be honored with a birthday party every year.
When I acquired this bicycle in the early 1980s, it had its original yellow paint and factory decals. I wanted a red bicycle, so I soon repainted it with red spray paint from rattle cans. It has carried me many thousands of miles since then, nearly all of them with me simultaneously playing an unamplified solid-body electric guitar as I ride the bicycle “no hands.”
In the Fall of 2001, the man at the local bicycle shop replaced all the bearings and cables. Afterwards, I used rattle can red spray paint again. This time though it wasn't as good a job as the first time I had painted it twenty years earlier. For years I had forgotten what model of Schwinn this was. I thought it was a Continental because of the tubular front forks (not flat like a Varsity's). I learned its true identity in December 2002.
In the Winter of 2002-03, I finally had the bicycle professionally painted and had its wheels and brakes upgraded. It now has quick-release wheels and center-pull brakes. Some other parts were also replaced, as described in some of the following hyperlinked web pages.
Creation of The Bicycling Guitarist This isn't about the bicycle directly, but describes how and when I started riding it with no hands while playing guitar.
Schwinn Continental This page was written when I mistakenly thought my bicycle was a Schwinn Continental.
Schwinn Sportabout describes how I discovered what model of Schwinn I actually have. Photographs from the Fall of 2001.
Schwinn “Sportinental” What do you get when you cross a Schwinn Sportabout with wheels and brakes from a Schwinn Continental? March 2003.
Another Schwinn Sportabout Photographs and description of a stock Schwinn Sportabout discovered on eBay in August 2003.
Lynn's Schwinn describes the rescue of another Schwinn Sportabout from a trash dumpster in June 2008.
NOS parts "New Old Stock" (an oxymoron?) parts acquired from eBay in August 2003.
NOS parts installed on my bicycle, photographs taken August 20, 2003.
Paint scratch repair, my latest attempt to make the right front fork look like new again. September 2003.
More new parts, a snazzy new seat, NOS rear derailleur, and a new chain. September and October 2003.
A shiny ten-speed bicycle has more photographs taken in September and October 2003.