By 1979, even the Paramount had schwinn bicycles been passed, technologically speaking, by a new generation of American as well as foreign custom bicycle manufacturers. By the late 1970s, a new bicycle sport begun by enthusiasts in Northern California had grown into a new type of all-terrain bicycle, the mountain bike. Mountain bikes were originally based on Schwinn balloon-tired cruiser bicycles fitted with derailleur gears and called “Klunkers”. A few participants began designing and building small numbers of mountain bikes with frames made out of modern butted chrome-molybdenum alloy steel.
I recently rebuilt an old 1983 Schwinn Le Tour and the article had been quite popular. The ownership of Schwinn-branded bikes has changed hands several times. In October 2021, a privately-held Dutch group called Pon Holdings bought Dorel Sports from Dorel Industries, the parent company for Schwinn, Cannondale, GT and Mongoose. The deal included acquisition of Pacific Cycle, which still manages the Schwinn brand and others from its headquarters in Madison. The original factory in Chicago that once employed as many as 2,000 people is long gone. The Schwinn brand is now owned by a Dutch conglomerate that manufactures bikes overseas and sells them to big box stores such as Target and Walmart.
Afterbeing late to the party, Schwinn finally developed a mountain bicycle thatcould live up to its reputation. They first rolled out a mountain-style bicyclein 1982 called the Sidewinder. Sidewinders were nothing more than modifiedSchwinn Varsities or Continentals with large tires and regular handlebars. The fourth-generation manager Ed Schwinn, Jr. placed too much emphasison financial models and was not interested enough in modernizing the familyfactory.
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.
For more than 130 years, the Schwinn name has been synonymous with bicycles. This is still true almost 30 years after bankruptcy ended the Schwinn family’s ownership of the brand. Debra Chen is an award-winning producer and host of The Great Fail, which examines the rise and fall of iconic brands and companies to garner lessons for executives in leadership positions. With C-suite leaders from iconic brands keynoting sessions, leading workshops and attending networking events, it’s the place to be for marketing innovation.
Schwinn was still a forcein the early 1970s, but the bloom was coming off the rose of an iconic Americancompany. After the death of Frank W.Schwinn, the three legs of the stool that had built Schwinn bicycles began to wobble.With catalogs schwinn electric bike featuring places like Disneyland and 20th Century Fox,marketing continued to be a Schwinn strong point. However, management had begunto ignore the need to retool its factory. Sales were still at all-time highs, but with themarket share declining, Swhinn’s dominance in the bicycle industry was on thewane.
The company also was not resting on its laurels because it was busyintroducing popular new models. Therewere some clouds on the horizon, but they would not materialize until muchlater. Schwinn also was not idle in developing new bicycle models.They launched the extremely popular Black Phantom in 1949. This was not much differentthan the earlier autocycle, but they added some fancy styling features that madeit popular among consumers. The Black Phantom was advertised as having all thepopular options, such as a spring fork, chrome fenders, horn button on tank,built-in fender light, and white wall tires. The model became quite popularduring the 1950s and today they are a collector’s item.
“Even if we built every bicycle in this country, you would probably build them with less than 10,000 people. And that’s not nearly as strategic as the automobile industry, which employs half a million people,” Schwinn said. However, one member of the Schwinn family remained at the helm of a U.S. bike company. Richard Schwinn ran Waterford Precision Cycles out of the same plant in southeastern Wisconsin previously owned by his family. In need of e-commerce and digital marketing expertise, we created an intuitive digital experience and brand schwinn electric bike new look for Schwinn.