Paramount sales will be consumer-direct when Schwinn begins shipping bikes June 20 and that means that, for now, you won’t be able to test-ride one at your local shop. That you can buy a brand new sparkly red carbon fiber road bike with electronic shifting and hydraulic disc brakes for $3,300, however, is quite special. The Schwinn Le Tour series makes road bikes bicycle designed for frequent riders seeking comfort and grace in a stylish frame. It features a Schwinn Bio-Tuned ergonomic geometry, a Reynolds 520 cro-moly steel frame, and an N’Gauged Gold Label cro-moly fork; all-together, they give the bike the strength and durability to survive years of handling.
Unlike its progenitors, the Klunker proved incapable of withstanding hard off-road use, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reintroduce the model as the Spitfire 5, it was dropped from production. Schwinn was soon sponsoring a bicycle racing team headed by Emil Wastyn, who designed the team bikes, and the company competed in six-day racing across the United States with riders such as Jerry Rodman and Russell Allen. In 1938, Frank W. Schwinn officially introduced the Paramount series. Developed from experiences gained in racing, Schwinn established Paramount as their answer to high-end, professional competition bicycles. The Paramount used high-strength chrome-molybdenum steel alloy tubing and expensive brass lug-brazed construction. During the next twenty years, most of the Paramount bikes would be built in limited numbers at a small frame shop headed by Wastyn, in spite of Schwinn’s continued efforts to bring all frame production into the factory.
E-bikes put extra power behind every pedal so you can ride further, faster, and over steeper hills on your journey to health and happiness. Schwinn N Litened triple butted frame is stiff, durable and give a fast and responsive ride. I trust that in a very short while, we’ll be able to give a more substantive description of how this rides & performs, as my son will pound this Schwinn Varsity CF as has hard as possible – both on our club rides & also as he’s starting to ride Criterium races and some longer road races as well. The bike is beautifully finished – and weighs about #, not the lightest of bikes – but not the heaviest, either.
He’s riding that old Benotto bike – which weighs 26 #, (so this Schwinn is a bit lighter), and is easily keeping up with the local ‘old guy’ riders on their sub 20#, $ 3000 + Trek, Giant or Specialized carbon fiber ‘wonder bikes’. I bought this road bike for my son for Christmas, and I’ve unpacked, adjusted & given it a ‘shakedown’ 10 mile ride. I have ridden road bikes for years, have an Italian ‘old school’ road bike – Benotto Mod 850, and this bike compares favorably.
However, this pinnacle of Schwinn’s bicycle production underwent several changes. Sometimes it was up on the top with the best road bikes in the world, in other years it slowly fell behind in the development of racing machines and ended up outdated, only to be resurrected, renewed and put back into its place as the number one. The bicycle industry is constantly
changing, as evidenced by the shift away from racing bikes that eventually
caught up to Schwinn schwinn road bike and Paramount in the 1980s, and the waves of Chinese built
frames that now dominate the market. Schwinn says that today Waterford would be
unsustainable as a business building only Waterfords and Gunnars. The results are touring bikes, road bikes,
cyclocross bikes and mountain bikes–for Rivendell, Boulder Bicycle, Georgena
Terry Bicycles, Shinola, and Milwaukee Bicycle Co., in addition to filling
orders for Waterford’s own brands, Waterford and Gunnar.
Still, the company ranks easily in the top
10 and possibly in the top five among bike builders in the United States. Roughly 100 U.S.-based builders, companies like Waterford, Serotta, Lynskey
Performance Designs and Independent Fabrication, manufacture about 12,000 bikes
a year domestically. That represents a miniscule fraction of the estimated 13
million adult bicycles sold in the country each year. The limited run of Paramounts and the
foundation of the Waterford and Gunnar models connect the company to its
lineage as an offspring of the once-dominant Schwinn line. At one time, Schwinn
employed 2,000 people in its Chicago factory.