Zell moved Schwinn’s corporate headquarters to Boulder, Colorado. The company’s next answer to requests for a Schwinn mountain bike was the King Sting and the Sidewinder, inexpensive BMX-derived bicycles fabricated from existing electro-forged frame designs, and using off-the-shelf BMX parts. During the 70’s, Paramount sales rose to 1,200 units annually. Schwinn supplemented Paramount production with contract-built frames by Don Mainland and Roger Nelson. Don and Roger, both riders from the 40’s and 50’s, had built up a successful tooling business in Racine, Wisconsin.
Back around ~2008 during the fixed-gear craze, new riders had Kilo TT frames because they were $300 fixed-gear bikes and the next level up was around $700. All during the 70’s, the Paramount schwinn ebike continued to sell in its well-proven design. The customer base for the bike changed, however, from primarily bike racers to older, wealthier riders looking for their ultimate cycling reward.
In 1896 Schwinn was founded, and by the end of that year, Schwinn bikes had more traffic than any other recreational bike company. As fitness trends shifted and technology evolved, Schwinn responded by offering a lineup of groundbreaking and affordable cardio equipment, including exercise bikes and treadmills. Several years ago, a company named Gates introduced a concept never before seen on outdoor bikes – a belt drive that performed like a chain.
The market has split into lousy department-store bikes and real bikes sold through specialist retailers. If I recall, it was what Schwinn called a “cantilever” frame, where the seat stays pass by the seat cluster and continue on in a graceful curve to join the bottom of the head tube. Older Schwinn “cruisers”, such as the Excelsior that was the inspiration of the first mountain bikes, used a straight lower top tube from the bottom of the head tube to the seat tube. In the bicycle industry, the most successful companies have doggedly stuck to producing high-quality products and refused to compete solely on price – the likes of Trek, Specialized and Cannondale.
After racing in the midwest, he raced in Japan’s Kierin circuit in the early 50’s. He then returned to the US, where he set the coast to coast cross country record, which stood for eleven years. Don’s firm supplied the 1972 Olympic frames schwinn dealers and Schwinn Superiors during the 1980’s. His tooling firm supplied Schwinn’s manufacturing all the way until 1990 in Mississippi. Wanda Omelian performed brazing almost from the outset, and Stanley Peters joined the group in 1960 to file.
It seems a good thing that people who wanted to just try out bicycling could do so cheaply; they probably bought a really cheap bike, rode it a few times and then the fad was over and the bike was forgotten. All I remember is we both couldn’t strattle the bikes comfortably. We ran out of water within a few hrs., and then it was garden hoses.