We do our best to find replacement parts, but keep in mind that parts may be difficult to find, especially for older models. It also may be cost-prohibitive to repair your machine if it is older. Great service and knowledgable, was fit for a new road bike,Went very well, great selection.
Schwinn had a very successful BMX factory supported racing team (beginning in 1976) made up of some of the best riders of the day. In the late 1960s, the Varsity and Continental pioneered the use of auxiliary brake levers, which allowed the rider to rest hands on the straight, horizontal center section of the ram’s horn handlebars, yet still have braking control. To further improve control from this more-erect riding position, the levers used to move the derailleurs (shifting the chain from one sprocket to the next) were moved from the traditional position on the “down tube” to the top of the headset, on a ring which would turn with the handlebar stem. This feature, attractive to older riders, soon found its way to other Schwinn models, especially those intended for senior citizens.
By 1957, the Paramount series, once a premier racing bicycle, had atrophied from a lack of attention and modernization. Aside from some new frame lug designs, the designs, methods and tooling were the same as had been used in the 1930s. 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.
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. This was a no-expense-spared project of Frank W. Schwinn, who wanted the bike to be introduced in 1938.
Sometime in the 1970’s, the Schwinn Chicago factory was organized by the United Auto Workers union, who felt that bicycle factory workers should be paid on the same scale as automotive workers. Unfortunately, the realities of the marketplace didn’t agree, and Schwinn closed the factory, transferring most production to Japan (Panasonic) and Taiwan (Giant). Schwinn also built a factory in Greenville, Mississippi, but it didn’t last, and even bought a factory in Hungary, but the deal fell through, and Schwinn never imported any Hungarian bikes to the U.S. 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 late 1997, Questor Partners Fund, led by Jay Alix and Dan Lufkin, purchased Schwinn Bicycles.
Schwinn introduced the original Sting-Ray in 1963 after the company realized kids in California had been customizing their bikes to look like motorcycles. Bikes were fitted with 20-inch wheels, elongated seats, rear “sissy bars,” and ape hanger handlebars. The original name in the indoor cycling industry has partnered with the most accurate powermeter in cycling; the all-new 4iiii® powermeter delivers the most accurate direct crank based power measurement on the market. It is the same technology used by professional World Tour cycling teams.
[Ignaz Schwinn] was born in Hardheim, Baden, Germany, in 1860 and worked on two-wheeled ancestors of the modern bicycle that appeared in 19th century Europe. In 1895, with the financial backing of fellow German American Adolph Frederick schwinn ebike William Arnold (a meat packer), he founded Arnold, Schwinn & Company. Schwinn’s new company coincided with a sudden bicycle craze in America.
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. 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.