badger_biker 

As a long time fan of mid level 80's and 90's Japanese and Trek bikes I had a tendancy to look down a bit on anything with a Schwinn name other than their balloon tire classics. As souces get tighter for inexpensive bikes to buy, fix up and possibly flip, I've started looking more at the Schwinns of that era and they marketed some pretty darn nice bikes. Yet other than Paramounts and touring related models I don't seem to see them praised or valued much.

I bought a '84 LeTour Luxe to fix as a grocery-getter and though it is a bit heavy it has a nice ride and geometry and makes for a good all around general bike. I recently looked at some newer LeTour and Prelude models selling in the $100 - $150 price range and they seem like some bargains.

Do people tend to think as I did that Schwinns were not on par with other bikes of their era or is it my imagination?

Picchio Special

Schwinn got it together in the serious lightweight department too late, IMO.

umpire54

I agree with you in that in my mind I think..."oh its a Schwinn". Last night I bought a 70'ish?? Chiorda (maybe from the looks of it...I have not researched it) With it I got a 84ish Schwinn World.

I'm thinking neither bikes are special but I got both for $60.00 total...and I couldn't pass it up figuring I could flip one to pay off the other. They both look great!! with the Schwinn actually looking like a 9. I rode it last night a for about 5 min...and I gotta say the Schwinn is pretty sweet.

I think it takes time to pass...before what was standard gets a little rarer. Kinda like when I was growing up a 68' Camaro was a hand me down and all the cool people drove a 76'-78' black or gold TA. Now I'd rather have the Camaro....as most people would. Time is passing and the TA'S are getting fixed up more and more too.

I think as time goes on the Schwinn name will come back. Their bikes were also sold here in the US
by the hundred thousands. Lots of them around still...

wrk101

Does Schwinn have a stigma? YES.

They spent too many years pushing old heavy clunkers. OK, they were very sturdy and built to take a beating. But for the same price, you could get a Japanese bike that weighed 10 pounds less, had modern components, better frame, etc. They missed the boat, and let brands like Trek and Cannondale take away their market. When you consider Trek came out of nowhere in the late 1970s, Schwinn had about a 75 year head start on Trek! Same with Cannondale.

It really is a sad story on branding, that will become a case study at some MBA program in the future (how to milk a brand too long, not innovate or upgrade your product, and let others take away your market).

IMHO, a smarter company would have moved their technology down their product line much sooner, continually upgrading product. They started doing it in the mid to late 80s, about ten years or more too late. So some of the mid to late 80s bikes started getting pretty good, bikes like the Tempo, Prelude and many more.

embankmentlb

I believe most people think of Schwinn as a maker of recreation quality bikes. However, most people want to think of themselves as serious cyclists and desire a bicycle made for the serious cyclist. Of course Schwinn made bikes in almost every price range & the quality of their bikes is as good or better than most other manufacturers. I don't think it's you imagination.

dauphin

Well said..and the same can be said for many companies that people thought would last forever.

tatfiend 

Prior to their selling road bikes based on Japanese made lugged steel frames the Schwinn "lightweights", except for the Paramount, were far from it.

The frames were welded Hi Ten steel and the components on the Varsity and related welded frame bikes were mostly lower end French items. The cranks were one piece steel and the fork blades were solid steel rather than tube as I recall.

It varies a lot with the individual person but millions got their first narrow tire road bike riding experience on the Varsity and many still look back with nostalgia on those early Schwinn ten speeds. Even in their era there were much better road bikes available than the Varsity, but they were more expensive.

The lugged steel Japanese frames were good bikes but not exceptional and had to compete with numerous other brands in the marketplace.

A fair amount of collector interest exists for the older Schwinn made cruisers. Very rugged and a clean one can sell for quite a bit to the right buyer. Same for the old Stingrays.

BengeBoy 

+1

I became a "serious" biker in the early 80's, and was actively in the market for "nice" bikes at that period of time. My Dad always made sure that we rode Schwinns as kids ("everything else is junk"), so I shopped Schwinn bikes seriously when it was time to purchase my own bikes for myself.

My clear recollection, as stated above, is that even "lightweight" Schwinns were heavier and more expensive than the Japanese bikes of the time, and equally priced but not nearly as nice as the European bikes (Raleigh, Peugot). The Paramount was around, but way beyond my budget.

Furthermore, at least in the cities where I lived, the *best* local bike shops were the Schwinn dealers, but they were also the most arrogant and difficult to deal with.

I think as a company they squandered a huge opportunity. Lots of other companies figured out how to respond to challenge from Japanese manufacturers and survive. Some didn't, and, as a U.S. taxpayer, you now own them!

awc380

Being up in Canada, I practically NEVER run into any old Schwinns. At all.
I'd love to, but doesn't happen too often.

jebensch

You're in Hull? Aw man, I go up there a lot for the Ottawa Animation Festival. Upstate New York is a hop, skip, jump away! Take a road trip to Syracuse and I bet you could come up with a few Schwinns to take home with ya!

jebensch

Actually - I saw a Craigslist post the other day for a pretty sweet Olmo. The seller quoted the "Schwinn of Italy" moniker, and I thought it was neat that they used it with the implication that Schwinn = good. Not that I don't think Schwinns are good, but that the seller assumed that attaching 'Schwinn' to Olmo would help the sale.

treebound 

What I've found is that people who are into cycling see Schwinns as second or third tier bikes as a general rule, and people who are not really into cycling do the familiar name recognition and think positively about Schwinns.

calamarichris

Stigma-shmigma. Who cares what other people think? My '86 Peloton was my highschool sweetheart back when I was a USCF junior and wearing a tie while pedaling to my [&$%!#] $4.35/hour job bagging groceries at Albertson's supermarket. She is currently have a spa-day at Cyclart. I'm just glad I still have my Rosebud, so I don't feel compelled to become a workaholic/billionaire newspaper magnate.

RobbieTunes

We simply couldn't afford Schwinns in the 70's, and the folks in my small town that did have them realized that they had to go all the way back to the store (1 hour away) to get parts.

As a result, I didn't like them one bit, some of it being class envy and some of it from working on my friend's bikes and realizing the Schwinns were nicer, but heavier. I especially liked the integrated kickstand, but when it came to banana bikes, there wasn't much difference besides price.

Other than a few specific Paramounts or afilado's sprint bike, I'm simply not into them. I bought an 84-86? LeTour for $40, with decent Sachs-Huret, Weinmann and Maillard components, fixed it up and sold it easily for $100. Folks were lining up for it, but I didn't consider it worth it.

For a kid with $105 in 1976, the Bicentennial edition Free Spirit 10-sp kicked butt on the available Schwinns for double that.

dit

IMO Schwinn did the same sort of thing that GM has been doing for several years. They tried to tell the public what they wanted and needed instead of hearing what the public wanted and needed. The management is arrogant and is unwilling to change. The "reorganization" is nothing more than a downsizing of the same phylosophy(sic). Schwinn and GM mirror one another I am sad to say.

Chombi

I think the Schwinn name was unfortunately pulled down by the lower end stuff that they sold. Problem was, you wnet to the local Schwinn dealership and the whole store is packed with mostly low priced, low tech and kiiddy bikes that it sets a tone in the store that it's not where "serious" bikers go to shop in. It's their having their own dealerships that hurt their image in the upper price market. Schwinn should have sold their bikes in the past as they do now, in dealerships/shops that carry other recognized and high line bike brands.
Actually, I think Schwinn had an easier time than other "murican" bike brands like "Huffy" (despite TDF/Olymipc exposure) or"Ross", whose names were related to by amny riders as department store/toy bikes in the 80's. You will notice that at least Schwinn is at least, still with us, while the other two are gone.

Chombi
84 Peugeot PSV

nwmtnbkr

I don't think there's a stigma within the general population. There is a market for less expensive, heavier bikes. If the economy recovers at a very slow pace, that portion of the market may grow and the market for more expensive bikes may shrink. Not everyone can or is willing to pay the astronomical prices that are charged for "lightweight" bikes. Schwinn will remain a viable brand name because of the demand for affordable bikes. Schwinn is also working with Toshiba to ensure that it's line of electric bicycles has advanced battery technology. The Toshiba SCiB (Super Charged Ion Batteries) batteries that are now shipped on Schwinn's Tailwind have the shortest recharging times of any battery on the market--30 minutes with the standard charger, 10 minutes with the optional "commercial" charger. Lightweight bikes are a niche in the bike market and I expect to see the real growth in the bike market to be power-assist models as economic pressures make it more and more expensive to operate privately-owned cars and trucks. (Yes, I see more and more "pooled cars and bikes" becoming popular in urban areas. Not only do you not have to bear the full cost of ownership; you don't need to worry about theft of an individual car or bike. In a decade, I wonder just how much car and bike ownership in US cities will have declined.)

CardiacKid

I am clearly older than the OP, but when I was growing up, we thought if it wasn't Schwinn, it was crap. There were really only 3 sources for bikes in my town. There was the Schwinn dealer, Sears and KMart. I am sure the Schwinn dealer had some of those exotic foreign bikes in his store, but where I grew up, no one would think of paying $300 for a bike. When it came time to buy my daughter her first bike, I looked in the phone book and found the schwinn dealer and bought her a bike, just like my parents had done for me. While there, I started noticing some of the other brands and ended up buying a Trek a few years later to replace my very long in the tooth Schwinn Varsity.
Looking at Craigslist now, I personally think Schwinns are overpriced. However, to the general public, over the age of 40, Schwinn was the bike.

mparker326

That is funny. My office mate told me that she couldn't afford a Schwinn in the 80's when she was getting into road biking so the LBS sold her a Nishiki. He told her Nishiki was the "Schwinn of Japan"

gridplan

The seller may have taken that line from Sheldon's site: "Someone I know once called Olmo the Schwinn of Italy..."

Bheleu

Personally own (in order they were procured, makes a better storyline of why did you buy that, and how crazy are you):
~1980's Rock N' Roll Murray (parents drove to factory and bought it for a birthday)
200X Mongoose Mountain Bike 21 speed (bought new at Sams Club)
200X Wife's bike (K-Mart bike, has a bad rim - blows any tube put in it)
1973 Schwinn Twinn Tandem Deluxe (5-Speed 67-lbs, ~$650 on Ebay)
Girl's Walmart Disney Princess (new at Walmart - not sure on brand)
Burley Piccolo Trailerbike (paid ~ $200 Ebay - if this really counts as a bike, it's on one of the Mongoose bikes)
1981 Schwinn Ladies Varsity (10-Speed, rescued from garbage pickup)
1977 Schwinn Volare (10-Speed ~21-lbs / Japanese Paramount with Dura Ace, ~$465 on Ebay)
1989 or 1979 Schwinn World Tourist ($50 on CL)
Girl's Huffy with Banana Seat (rescued from garbage pickup, one of our favorite bikes)
Girl's Schwinn (paid $4 animal rescue thrift store - more of a Walmart Bike)
~1982 or 1983 Peugeot Folding Bike (paid $100 on CL)
200X Mongoose Full Suspension Mountain Bike 21 speed (thrift store for $50, could not pass it up)
~1976 (still dating it) Motobecane Mixte - (picked it up today for $50 CL)

Of all of those, the Schwinn's are my favorite - the history is easier to track on the older ones and they're fun to work on. A Schwinn is still a quality bike, but the bikes from yesteryear are better than those made today. Everything was made better then because cost cutting controls were not a worry back then. Now manufacturing is about cheaper to make, yields more profit (anything to save a penny).

rumrunn6

maybe, but so do old Italian dudes. don't like me an my bikes? eat my dust or pass me.

dauphin

stop into a Walmart, Costco, or Target...and take a gander at "those" Schwinns...that doesn't help perception among "serious" cyclists...no matter what kind of high end product you could purchase from a regular LBS. For the "casual" consumer looking for a bargain...those bikes in the box stores probably seem just fine and sturdy for their kids. Up until 3 years ago, I wouldn't have known any different either.

Rabid Koala

When it was time to replace my aging Raleigh Grand Prix in early 1973, Schwinn wasn't even on the map as far as I was concerned. I don't think the LeTours had yet hit the market here, and the Super Sport/Sports Tourer were not marketed well enough to let me know they were different from Varsities and Continentals.

I bought my bike from a Schwinn dealer, but the bike was a Nishiki. I bought one more second hand bike from the LBS where I was briefly employed, but after that I did not buy another bike until about 2003.

dbakl

Yes.