The Schwinn road bike history is fraught with both triumph and missed opportunities. What started out as a promising company with an exciting product was subsequently left in the dust because of faulty management decisions.
A Great Start
Ignaz Schwinn and Adoph Arnold started what would later become Schwinn under the name of Arnold, Schwinn & Company, in Chicago in 1895. Ignaz Schwinn bought out his partner, and in the middle of the Great Depression, in 1933, invented the inflatable bicycle tire. It measured 26 inches and he called it the Bicycle Balloon Tire. By 1935, the balloon tire had become the industry standard.
The Middle Years
For the next 30 years, until the end of the 1960s, Schwinn was determined to market bicycles to the American consumers whether they wanted them or not, and for the most part, they did not. Bicycles were considered children's toys until Schwinn introduced the Varsity road bike, which some consider the single most significant American bicycle and an American classic.
The Schwinn Varsity Road Bike
During the first year of production, more Varsity and Continental bikes were sold than all other American derailleur bikes. The Continental was an upscale version of the Varsity. By the time production was halted in 1986, the style had been the most produced derailleur bicycle in the world. According to Tom Shaddox, its success was a combination of two important factors: an affordable price and a high enough quality to make its users feel that biking really was fun, something the average American adult had not been raised to believe.
A Case of Complacency
Besides the Varsity's one-generation-long success, the Schwinn company fell asleep at the wheel while everybody else started to get excited about mountain bikes. Believing that mountain bikes were merely a passing fad, Schwinn never recovered from this miscalculation. By 1985, adult bike sales comprised 50 percent of the market, but Schwinn, having failed to participate in research and development, was now considered a children's bike company once again and ill-equipped to satisfy sophisticated adult riders' needs.
Changing Hands
The company has changed hands three times since then. In 1993, the last Schwinn to run the company, Edward Schwinn Jr., sold the company to Scott Sports Group Inc., which kept the name Schwinn but redesigned every bike model. In 2001, Schwinn was bought by Pacific Cycle, which kept the Schwinn name and the line of bicycles. The latest owner is Dorel, which bought Schwinn from Pacific Cycles and continues to manufacture Schwinn bicycles to this day.
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