Are Schwinn Bikes Good? What You Need To Know Before Buying!

Schwinn bought out Arnold’s share of the company, installing himself as the sole master and commander of the business (although he did keep the Arnold, Schwinn & Co. name in use for decades afterward). I can’t speak to Schwinn’s reputation across the Seven Seas, but the business was certainly making dough on its home continent. Even when the national bike boom reached its inevitable end around the turn of the century , Ignaz Schwinn was able to navigate the obstacle course deftly, pushing forward while most of his competitors sunk into obscurity. Into the smog of the combustion engine era, Arnold, Schwinn & Co. pedaled on. Children’s or youth bike prices start a lot lower and can range between $70 to $800 depending on the features you are looking for on the bike.

A vintage stingray being sold today could get you upwards of $3000 if it’s still in mint condition, however, the less popular models like the Schwinn Breeze could maybe bring you $250 on a good day. The price of a Schwinn bike will depend on the model on the bike and whether you’re buying it brand new. Brand new models can vary between $200 to over $1000 for adult bikes depending on where you buy them from.

Even when you want to go for the trails, mountain hills, or long biking trips; these new mid-range Schwinn bikes gonna do great for average riders. But that does not mean the bike is as good as they use to be back in the 20th century. They are no longer the bike manufacturer that produce both entry-level bikes and top of the line bikes of great quality. Today their brand is synonymous with cheap entry-level bikes of decent quality. Today if you ask anyone about their Bikes they will first off mention. They no longer connect the business with sporting achievement and game-changing technology.

schwinn bicycles

You will not find professional bikers groups that celebrate the company. The Professionals And Cons Of The Schwinn S29 Full Suspension Mountain Bike Old mountain bikes, ones that don’t have super… Schwinn has been around for well over a century while Mongoose is certainly newer on the scene.

Schwinn never played it conservative with their ad budget, but their best sales agents were always their customers. Popular mid-century models like the Streamline Aerocycle, the AutoCycle, the Continental, Panther, Jaguar, Hornet, Black Phantom, and Sting-Ray all generated word-of-mouth buzz at bike shops, playgrounds, offices, etc. The Chicago factory was basically producing the bicycle equivalent of the Mustangs and T-Birds coming out of Detroit, and the biggest challenge was just keeping up with demand.

There is a thriving market out there for vintage Schwinn bikes, which is part of the reason a shop like Barnard’s (est. 1911) can still be in business today. Some buyers just like the look and feel of the old classics, while others are trying to tap into something more personal and sentimental. Schwinns occupy huffy mountain bike plenty of pages in the flip-book of Baby Boomer nostalgia, after all, coasting through idyllic suburban summer days with the sound of baseball cards buzzing between the spokes. Most models of Schwinn bikes have years of images and information via old catalogs, advertisements and Schwinn documentation.

Ignaz played a huge role in the innovation of bicycles and his passion helped sculpt the industry even to this day. When compared to all other bikes today, Schwinn bikes are of excellent quality for their selling price. The brand had managed to sustain its presence by delivering a better product than what generally available. Within the next seven years, they grew to become one of the largest bicycle brands in the USA and abroad. Their cycles are just workhorse entry-level products with superior quality than many other cheap bikes.

The company’s next answer to requests for a Schwinn mountain bike was the King Sting and the Sidewinder, inexpensive BMX-derived bicycles fabricated from existing electro-forged frame designs, and using off-the-shelf BMX parts. By the mid-1970s, competition from lightweight and feature-rich imported bikes was making strong inroads in the budget-priced and beginners’ market. While Schwinn’s popular lines were far more durable than the budget bikes, they were also far heavier and more expensive, and parents were realizing that most of the budget bikes would outlast most kids’ interest in bicycling. At the close of the 1920s, the stock market crash decimated the American motorcycle industry, taking Excelsior-Henderson with it. With no buyers, Excelsior-Henderson motorcycles were discontinued in 1931.