There is a thriving market out there for vintage Schwinn bikes, which is part of the reason a shop like Barnard’s (est. 1911) can still be in business today. Some buyers just like the look and feel of the old classics, while others are trying to tap into something more personal and sentimental. Schwinns occupy plenty of pages in the flip-book of Baby Boomer nostalgia, after all, coasting through idyllic suburban summer days with the sound of baseball cards buzzing between the spokes. Most models of Schwinn bikes have years of images and information via old catalogs, advertisements and Schwinn documentation.
The Schwinn Bicycle Company was founded by German-born mechanical engineer Ignaz Schwinn (1860–1948) in Chicago in 1895. It became the dominant manufacturer of American bicycles through huffy mountain bike most of the 20th century. After declaring bankruptcy in 1992, Schwinn has since been a sub-brand of Pacific Cycle, owned by the multi-national conglomerate, Dorel Industries.
Even when you want to go for the trails, mountain hills, or long biking trips; these new mid-range Schwinn bikes gonna do great for average riders. But that does not mean the bike is as good as they use to be back in the 20th century. They are no longer the bike manufacturer that produce both entry-level bikes and top of the line bikes of great quality. Today their brand is synonymous with cheap entry-level bikes of decent quality. Today if you ask anyone about their Bikes they will first off mention. They no longer connect the business with sporting achievement and game-changing technology.
In October 1979, Edward R. Schwinn, Jr. took over the presidency of Schwinn from his uncle Frank, ensuring continuity of Schwinn family in the operations of the company. However, worker dissatisfaction, seldom a problem in the early years, grew with steep increases in inflation. In late 1980, the Schwinn Chicago factory workers voted to affiliate with the United Auto Workers. Plant assembly workers began a strike for higher pay in September 1980, and 1,400 assembly workers walked off the job for thirteen weeks. Although the strike ended in February 1981, only about 65% of the prior workforce was recalled to work.
The company and name were bought by the Zell/Chilmark Fund, an investment group, in 1993. The boom in bicycle sales was short-lived, saturating the market years before motor vehicles were common on American streets. By 1905, bicycle annual sales had fallen to only 25% of that reached in 1900.
The bicycle would eventually come to be known as a paperboy bike or cruiser. Over the years, Schwinn’s bikes developed and evolved into the massive bike line-up that they offer today. Although the company started out with a focus on performance road bikes, they’ve since expanded their offerings to include a range of affordable mountain bikes, road bikes, BMX bikes, and even electric bikes for cyclists to choose from. The Greenville plant was not a success, as mongoose bmx bike it was remote from both the corporate headquarters as well as the West coast ports where the material components arrived from Taiwan and Japan. The Greenville manufacturing facility, which had lost money each year of its operation, finally closed in 1991, laying off 250 workers in the process. While Schwinn offers cruiser, hybrid, road, and electric bikes in addition to their tried-and-trusted mountain bikes, Mongoose creates BMX and urban bikes, instead.