The Golden Boy 

There's been threads on this- but Richard Schwinn was interviewed by Wisconsin Public Radio.

https://www.wpr.org/waterford-bicycl...oje9IDyt0VWMLA

alcjphil

Interesting. When I was a child growing up in Montreal, Schwinn bikes were almost never seen in Canada. It was an almost exclusive USA brand. In fact, it has only been since the company collapsed that Schwinn bikes have been seen here on a regular basis. I had always thought that Schwinns were similar to CCM bikes. CCM suffered a similar fate. They are both brands rather than actual companies

merziac

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwinn_Bicycle_Company

alcjphil

I am pretty familiar with the history of the Schwinn bicycle company. It was a company that relied far too much on its captive USA market and didn't look elsewhere even to a country only a couple hundred miles north of where it was building its bikes

Lascauxcaveman 

Dunno about CCM, but Schwinn was very much a company, with its own factory(s) and everything.

When did the first Asian built Schwinn frames appear? Late 1970s or something? I guess you could say it became just a "brand' after the last American Schwinn plant closed down a decade or so later..

downtube42

Oddly enough, my recumbent is a Waterford. It's a Volae, house brand of Wisconsin based Hostel Shoppe, who had Waterford build their frames.

I wonder how many other Waterford frames, Schwinn or otherwise, have completed two Paris Brest Paris grand brevets. Can't be too many.

merziac

Huh, well they wrote the book on bikes for over 50 years until they didn't, they imploded all on their own and no watered down version of them sold in Canada would have helped.

Few bike companies sold as many bikes, won as many races and captured the public loyalty as they did.

You all had plenty of your own standout builders and brands that did just fine, any move from Schwinn would have been viewed as intrusional and likely not welcome.

They had nothing in common with CCM or any other market filler brand that was so popular and successful there, till they weren't.

You're only right about the current version of Schwinn which is now owned by Pacific cycle and is one of many brands that are different in name only from Taiwan/China and again have nothing to do with the original Schwinn of old.

Even after they imploded, Richard kept the best of it going for a long time and even did a better job of it, some of the very best before and after that.

Not sure what your point could have been, Schwinn's success is well chronicled and without question, no venture north of the US would have changed that one way or the other.

abdon 

Their approach was to sell through Schwinn dealerships, which makes it harder to crack a new market unless you are willing to spend a lot of money on the infrastructure. Yet another one of the things they missed out on because they were set on their ways.

Kabuki12

In 1994 I was in Chicago for a machine tool show. While I was there I visited the Schwinn museum that was along a waterfront walk . It was pretty cool and brought back a lot of memories . When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies they were the top bikes for kids . We would jump curbs and do wheelies on our Sting Rays , they held up well to our abuse!

USAZorro

My uncle ran a bike shop through the 1960s and 1970's and which survived him a few years into the 80s. By the time I became attuned to bicycle brands beyond the 20"ers that my friends and I were riding, he was selling mainly Raleighs which he augmented with other brands (some Peugeots and Frejus for example). While most of my friends rode Schwinn Stingrays (a few had Raleigh Chuppers), I was on a Raleigh Fireball. Ever since I've been a bit of a Raleigh snob, thinking he was a Raleigh dealer because he thought they were better. Well, my uncle passed in 1979, and it wasn't until about 12 years ago that I had a conversation with his former partner. I asked him about why they sold Raleighs. He said that, although there were always issues getting their exact orders filled by the Raleigh distributor (he's pretty sure Stuyvesant Cycles in NYC was getting the distributor to send them there), this was preferable than going with Schwinn which, although had good products and would have been more reliable in filling orders, insisted on taking control of what stores kept in inventory. This was not how they wanted to run things.

SirMike1983 

It is very difficult to keep a family company going. Each generation has to enter the business, acquire the necessary skills and knowledge, run the business, and then pass it on to the next. It's not an easy thing to do. Richard deserves credit for continuing as long as he did.

Arnold, Schwinn & Co. produced adult bicycles at a time when only a very small portion of the adult population was interested, from just before WWII, through the bike boom. The youth-oriented balloon tire bikes and middleweights are well-remembered. But it is often forgotten that Schwinn soldiered on in the US market for adult bikes. They probably did not make much money on those bikes, but I credit them for sticking with it and producing some very durable, attractive touring bikes for adults in the US.

1989Pre 

Once we were big enough to get onto Raleigh 3-speeds, we all agreed, to-the-man, that the Raleighs were better bicycles than the Varsities and Continentals. I will give Schwinn credit for being responsive-enough to produce some chrome-moly models. I think they should have offered lugged versions of those. Even if just for looks.

downtube42

I worked for a different company in a different industry, with a similar story. They were successful and even dominant from the late teens to the late 80's. That's a tremendous success story. They failed to adapt to the transition from mechanical to electronic systems, and slowly died. Many companies, most I imagine, don't last nearly as long as these.

merziac

Nor have nearly the impact that these did.

Johno59

Growing up in the 1960s we were obsessed with Raleigh choppers and then mountain bikes. They were all poorly made and terrible brakes gears etc. Compared to an old road bike they were shocking commuting/school run bikes and eventually we got into motor cycles coz the bicycles were hard work to ride/maintain.
I have been restoring old bikes for nearly 20 years now and the old codgers were right about older bikes being better for getting from A to B as they were better made from better material.
Most older bikes don't stop as well but they are more comfortable and durable on normal roads. The older the bike (even pre WW1) the easier they are to restore owing to the better quality metals, threads brazenings etc.
Certainly poor marketing, management etc played a significant part in the demise of Schwinn. Raleigh and countless other marques but folks underestimate the impact of poor metallurgy on the demise of what were globall significant brands.

dddd

For what it's worth, just my opinion, but the current holders of the Schwinn marque seem to be the quality leader of department store brands.
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Although not offered is a variety of frame sizes (other than models sized according to their wheel size), the styling and the really critical quality of components like bottom brackets and suspension forks have proven (to me) to be superior to the many other time-honored names still selling department store bikes.

Here's my example of an early-2000's Schwinn hybrid, which I put 29x2" tires on for some versatility. I believe this model was sold out of Costco, and the frame size is like any good bike in about the 18" frame size so fits me well.
The spindly fork stanchions (I covered them with boots) are ok here because there is no disc brake caliper heavily and asymmetrically loading the fork legs.
The suspension seatpost is a very big plus on a bike like this, extending it's versatility. I was smitten by the frame/fork's styling and paid $40 for this bike at Goodwill in a much rougher state than appears in the photo. Luckily both wheels were in good shape and the fork was at least rebuildable.

Chombi1 

"Electro Forged".....what does that really mean? Welding?
Whatever it is, it seems to have made Schwinn frames bomb proof, maybe even more that Peugeot's UO8s....

Trakhak

Excerpt from this article on the Sheldon Brown site:

"Before the E/F frames, Schwinn was fillet-brazing and welding joints by hand, then grinding and polishing them until the frame seemed carved from a block of steel. The E/F frame sought to mimic a handbuilt, fillet-brazed frame while dramatically reducing manufacturing costs. To achieve this look, Schwinn engineers actually moved the "joints" from their typical locations at the ends of the mitered tubes to a circumferential butt joint around the tube about 1 1/2" from the typical joint locations: the "head tube" actually extends out to the joint on the top tube and down tube."

By the way, it occurs to me that Schwinn already had plenty of experience in building lightweight bikes (having introduced the Paramount as long ago as 1938) before they came up with the electro-forging process.

But electro-forging wasn't just about reducing frame-building costs. They could have chosen to build lighter-weight bikes, like the European bike companies, but they must have been aware that the American market for such bikes just wasn't there. Not yet.

But they knew that they could sell durability So they built all-but-indestructible bikes and introduced the world's first lifetime frame warranty, doubtlessly to the despair of their competitors. There's no knowing when, or if, lifetime frame warranties would have become a widespread policy without Schwinn dominating the U.S. bike market until well into the '70's.

top506

Sheldon had posted this at Harris years ago:

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/varsity.html

Explains everything EF.

Top

SirMike1983 

The lightweight models announced in 1938 pre-dated electro-forge welding by 3-4 years. The first electro-forged lightweights were New Worlds of the i-series serial numbers in 1942. The move to electro-forging did not happen all at once. I-series New Worlds sometimes are fillet brazed and sometimes are electro-forged during the course of 1942. And among those that were electro-forged, it was only some of the frame joints, particularly those that particularly lent themselves to the process. Some joints that were more difficult for the process remained fillet brazed well after WWII. The process was revolutionary when it appeared at that time, but by the 1970s was a pretty dated way of building a touring bike. They were durable though, that's for sure.

Piff 

It's a lot of pressure to be the last of a family legacy and to be the keeper of the flame. Good to hear he's recalibrated his perspective to celebrate career accomplishments. It has to end at some point!

seedsbelize2

1972 World Voyageurs came from Japan and 1978 brought bikes from Giant. Please correct me if I’m remembering incorrectly

Johno59

Apparently Raleigh and Schwinn were unique in the way they made the entire bicycle in-house - even the tires. I know Raleigh did 15 000 people worked there. I don't think Flying Pigeon in China can make that boast. They still make a copy of the 1932 Raleigh /Philips roaster. They have made 600 million of them- rod brakes and all.

big chainring 

Just some thoughts from the Chicago perspective. I was 15 when I started racing bikes in the Chicago area. The racing scene was organised/promoted by a few Belgian and German families. Most of these racing families rode and promoted Schwinn and the Paramount racing bike. Schwinn was like the local custom builder.

Schwinn night at the Northbrook Velodrome was a big deal. Schwinn banners were put up around the track and really good prizes were awarded that night. And in the stands would be the local racing/store owner dignitaries. At the time, I was a teen and didnt really know who these people were....Othon Oschner, Jim Rossi, Babe VandeVelde, Al Stiller, George Garner.

And Schwinn night would bring out the racers as well. The local Lakeshore/Schwinn club with Danny VanHaute and Gus Pipenhagen. The Wolverine/Schwinn club from Detroit... Roger and Sheila Young, Sue Navara...

At the time a track bike was somewhat rare. Not too many bike shops that you could go to and buy a track bike. But you could walk into any Schwinn dealer and order a Paramount. Probably 70-80% of the bikes on the track were Paramounts.

repechage

check tariff structures. Canada was strategic to foster Domestic industry. Schwinn might have built an assembly plant in Canada…