In late 1997, Questor Partners Fund, led by Jay Alix and Dan Lufkin, purchased Schwinn Bicycles. Questor/Schwinn later purchased GT Bicycles in 1998 for $8 a share in cash, roughly $80 million. The new company produced a series of well-regarded mountain bikes bearing the Schwinn name, called the Homegrown series.[62] In 2001, Schwinn/GT declared bankruptcy.
After a crash-course in new frame-building techniques and derailleur technology, Schwinn introduced an updated Paramount with Reynolds 531 double-butted tubing, Nervex lugsets and bottom bracket shells, as well as Campagnolo derailleur dropouts. The Paramount continued as a limited production model, built in small numbers in a small apportioned area of the old Chicago assembly factory. The new frame and component technology incorporated in the Paramount largely failed to reach Schwinn’s mass-market bicycle lines. W. Schwinn, grandson Frank Valentine Schwinn took over management of the company. By 1950, Schwinn had decided the time was right to grow the brand. 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.
By 1990, other United States bicycle companies with reputations for excellence in design such as Trek, Specialized, and Cannondale had cut further into Schwinn’s market. Unable to produce bicycles in the United States at a competitive cost, by the end of 1991 Schwinn was sourcing its bicycles from overseas manufacturers. This in turn led to further inroads by domestic and foreign schwinn mountain bike competitors. Faced with a downward sales spiral, Schwinn went into bankruptcy in 1992.[59] The company and name were bought by the Zell/Chilmark Fund, an investment group, in 1993. Zell moved Schwinn’s corporate headquarters to Boulder, Colorado. With its mid-modulus carbon fiber construction, the Paramount doesn’t feel as stiff as other endurance road bikes I’ve ridden.
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. 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. This proved to be a major miscalculation, as several new United States startup companies began producing high-quality frames designed from the ground up, and sourced from new, modern plants in Japan and Taiwan using new mass-production technologies such as TIG welding.
At the close of the 1920s, the stock market crash decimated the American motorcycle industry, taking Excelsior-Henderson with it. Arnold, Schwinn, & Co. (as schwinn road bike it remained until 1967) was on the verge of bankruptcy. With no buyers, Excelsior-Henderson motorcycles were discontinued in 1931.[5] Ignaz’s son, Frank W.
The Schwinn Varsity Carbon Men’s Road Bike frame is made of an aluminum carbon composite (ACC) construction for superior strength. In conversation, Schwinn shifts smoothly
from violins to bike building to U.S.-China trade relations. Thoughtful and
well-sourced, he analyzes the economy as carefully as a new bike buyer inspects
a brazed lug. Week-to-week, the diversely talented crew
of 18 workers move from milling machines to welders to oxy-acetylene torches,
joining steel tube with walls as thin as 0.4 mm with perfect tig welds,
artfully cast lugs, and spools of precious silver. Bike sold by Cycle & Coffee in Fremont, Seattle. If you’re local feel free to reach out to schedule a test ride.
While Schwinn’s popular lines were far more durable than the budget bikes, 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. Although the Varsity and Continental series would still be produced in large numbers into the 1980s, even Schwinn recognized the growing market in young adults and environmentally-oriented purchasers, devoting the bulk of their schwinn road bike marketing to lighter models intended to pull sales back from the imports. On the roads outside Monterey, California, the Paramount felt fantastically light. Relatively speaking, the frame isn’t what you’d call stiff, but it is ultra-compliant and therefore comfortable over pockmarked pavement. The Force eTap AXS drivetrain shifts fast and the brakes are so potent that their stopping power feels limited only by the grip from the 28mm Vittoria tires.