With that, let’s talk about the Schwinn bike models by year. The lack of a water bottle cage seems like some old-school bike racing thing. “Yeah, back in the ’70′s we didn’t drink water when we raced. Water was too heavy.” Actually, water bottle cages schwinn dealers would typically have been bolted around the down tube in the normal spots. The owner of this bike just didn’t want to mess up the lovely Paramount decals than run along the tube. For the sake of style he carried a bottle in his jersey pocket.
There are necked-down parts that fit into the top tube and down tube, like internal lugs. Bring your bike to us for a hassle-free, fair market value trade and start shopping for your new bike today. Bring in a team of qualified fitness equipment technicians to make the process easy.
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. Pon Holdings, which bid unsuccessfully to buy the Sparta and Batavus brands for $900 million in 2017, said the latest acquisition would give it a strong foothold in U.S. markets where it expects to sell e-bikes, as well as road, city and mountain bikes. 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.
If you absolutely have no idea what to do and have no time to figure it all out, you always have the option to hire a professional consultant to help you out. With an appraiser, he does all the job of assessing your vintage piece. Tip #2 – Search and check for Schwinn bike prices, specifically of the bike you have. These features help you protect your bike and yourself as well.
Most of the real bike shops in this country were located in big cities. The internet wasn’t around, and mail order shopping took a lot of effort. Schwinn dealers, however, could be found in lots of smaller cities and towns, and Schwinn’s Paramount division offered some real high performance bikes. No need to try to import Italian or French racing frames and then scrounge for parts when you could simply pick a Paramount that suited your racing style and budget. 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.
The same happened with the mountain-bike culture of the 80’s pioneered by Northern California riders like Michael Sinyard (founder of Specialized), Tom Ritchey and Gary Fisher. What Schwinn didn’t recognize is that trends are often set by minority thinkers, and not by the Number One. And vintage bikes are among the precious items for collectors. Now, you may be wondering, how much is a vintage Schwinn bike worth? In the ’60′s and early ’70′s it was a little tough to get your hands on a proper racing bike.
Most models of Schwinn bikes have years of images and information via old catalogs, advertisements and Schwinn documentation. This page lists Schwinn bicycles models (sorted alphabetically) and links to their details. Over the years, Schwinn has empowered millions of people, earning a special place in the hearts and minds of generations of riders. We have spent over a century building the bicycle industry into what it is today, and we’re not done yet. Even if they are 50-year-old bikes, if they are still in excellent condition, they can still be worth a lot. This, of course, depends on the model of the Schwinn bike you have.
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. 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. While the Paramount still sold in limited numbers to this market, the model’s customer base began to age, changing from primarily bike racers to older, wealthier riders looking for the ultimate bicycle. Schwinn sold an impressive 1.5 million bicycles in 1974, but would pay the price for failing to keep up with new developments in bicycle technology and buying trends.
Pete knows great racing bikes, and this was one of his favorites. In time, the Paramount came in a variety of models but remained expensive to produce and purchase. They also manufactured their own rims in the Chicago factory, the “Schwinn Tubular Rim”. These rims, like the Chicago frames, were among the sturdiest ever built. The parts that say “Schwinn” were made by Schwinn in their enormous Chicago factory (which I had the pleasure of touring in the early ’70’s). Parts that say “Schwinn Approved” were made elsewhere to Schwinn’s specifications.