Our newest bike, the AC Performance Plus with Carbon Blue, is designed to enhance rider comfort with an infinitely adjustable seat and handlebars, a wider step-through and durable, covered stretch pads – all surrounded by a rust-free aluminum frame. A stronger drive train and carbon blue belt make for easy maintenance while delivering an authentic riding experience indoors. It’s an innovative and stylish design that keeps us on the cutting edge of the indoor cycling industry – and it will keep you coming back time after time. Another problem was Schwinn’s failure to design and market its bicycles to specific, identifiable buyers, especially the growing number of cyclists interested in road racing or touring. Instead, most Schwinn derailleur bikes were marketed to the general leisure market, equipped with heavy “old timer” accessories such as kickstands that cycling aficionados had long since abandoned.
The turn of the century and the start of the automotive era saw a wave of consolidations in the bicycle business, out of which Schwinn emerged weakened – but even more ambitious. Various takeover made Schwinn one on the big players, and retailing through mass merchants allowed the Chicago-based company to achieve big sales. In 1928, the in-house brand for motorcycles that had been acquired in 1912 and 1917, Excelsior-Henderson, even ranked 3rd in the national motorcycle industry.
Not all vintage Schwinns have serial numbers or follow a set convention for placement and numbering. If there is a serial number, it will always appear on the actual frame of the bike, rather than on a removable part like the seat, handlebars, or wheels. Most Schwinn bikes will feature a head badge or plate that identifies them as a Schwinn. This badge varied in style, depending on the style of bike and the year it was made.
1960s – For vintage Schwinn bikes from the 1960s, look for a serial number on the rear fork end of the frame itself or the part where the axle attaches for the rear wheel. You can determine whether a Schwinn bike is vintage by looking up its serial number. The serial number appears in different places on the bike depending on the year and the place the bike was made.
Schwinn’s new competitors such as Specialized and Fisher MountainBikes were soon selling hundreds of thousands of mountain bikes at competitive prices to eager customers, setting sales records in a market niche that soon grew to enormous proportions. By the mid-1970s, competition from lightweight and feature-rich imported bikes was making strong inroads in the budget-priced and beginners’ market. While Schwinn’s popular lines were far more durable than the budget bikes, schwinn bicycles they were also far heavier and more expensive, and parents were realizing that most of the budget bikes would outlast most kids’ interest in bicycling. Inspired, he designed a mass-production bike for the youth market known as Project J-38. The result, a wheelie bike, was introduced to the public as the Schwinn Sting-Ray in June 1963. The boom in bicycle sales was short-lived, saturating the market years before motor vehicles were common on American streets.
At the time, most bicycle manufacturers in the United States sold in bulk to department stores, which in turn sold them as store brand models. F. Goodrich bicycles, sold in tire stores, Schwinn eliminated the practice of producing private label bicycles in 1950, insisting that the Schwinn brand and guarantee appear on all products. In exchange for ensuring the presence of the Schwinn name, distributors retained the right to distribute Schwinn bikes to any hardware store, toy store, or bicycle shop that ordered them. W. Schwinn tasked a new team to plan future business strategy, consisting of marketing supervisor Ray Burch, general manager Bill Stoeffhaas, and design supervisor Al Fritz.
Basically, the company had to choose in where to produce bicycles at a more competitive prices. The Schwinns decided to turn to Taiwan and China, but even though suppliers like Tony Lo’s Giant Manufacturing made high quality products, unlucky sourcing desisions led to supply shortage, angry retailers and receding customers. Edward Schwinn, CEO, just wasn’t as passionate about bicycles as his ancestors were. Yoshi Shimano, who was Edward Schwinn’s personal translator during his business trips to Asia, described him as “a nice fellow“, who “had a lower degree of interest for the business“.
Zell moved Schwinn’s corporate headquarters to Boulder, Colorado. Schwinn’s whisper quiet Smooth Cycling series allows riders to channel their attention to any experience that a studio is striving to achieve. The SC 7 is combines user-focused features, best-in-class biomechanics and a high degree of adjustability to deliver the optimal bike fit for riders of all shapes, sizes and abilities. To maintain uncompromising quality ride after ride, the Studio 7 features a patent-pending bottom bracket that exceeds industry standards, rust-defying materials and rock solid construction.