During the next twenty years, most of the Paramount bikes can be in-built restricted numbers at a small body shop headed by Wastyn, in spite of Schwinn’s continued efforts to bring all frame manufacturing into the factory. Another drawback was Schwinn’s failure to design and market its bicycles to specific, identifiable consumers, especially the rising variety of cyclists interested in highway racing or touring. Instead, most Schwinn derailleur bikes have been marketed to the overall leisure market, outfitted with heavy “old timer” accessories corresponding to kickstands that cycling aficionados had long since abandoned.
They additionally make rugged 24-inch mountain bikes, like the Sidewinder and the High Timber. The company’s subsequent answer to requests for a Schwinn mountain bike was the King Sting and the Sidewinder, inexpensive BMX-derived bicycles fabricated from existing electro-forged body designs, and utilizing off-the-shelf BMX parts. The firm also joined with other United States bicycle manufacturers in a campaign to lift import tariffs throughout the board on all imported bicycles. In August 1955, the Eisenhower administration implemented a 22.5% tariff price for three out of four categories of bicycles. However, the most well-liked adult class, light-weight or “racer” bicycles, have been only raised to 11.25%.
After a crash-course in new frame-building strategies and derailleur expertise, Schwinn launched an updated Paramount with Reynolds 531 double-butted tubing, Nervex lugsets and bottom bracket shells, as well as Campagnolo derailleur dropouts. The Paramount continued as a limited production mannequin, built in small numbers in a small apportioned area of the old Chicago meeting factory. The new body and element technology included 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. In October 1979, Edward R. Schwinn, Jr. took over the presidency of Schwinn from his uncle Frank, ensuring continuity of Schwinn family within the operations of the company. However, employee dissatisfaction, seldom a problem in the early years, grew with steep increases in inflation.
A growing variety of US teenagers and young adults were buying imported European sport racing or sport touring bicycles, many fitted with a quantity of derailleur-shifted gears. Schwinn determined to meet the problem by creating two traces of sport or road ‘racer’ bicycles. One was already within the catalog — the limited production Paramount sequence. As at all times, the Paramount spared no expense; the bicycles got schwinn mountain bike high-quality light-weight lugged metal frames utilizing double-butted tubes of Reynolds 531 and fitted with quality European parts including Campagnolo derailleurs, hubs, and gears. The Paramount series had limited production numbers, making classic examples quite rare at present. The 1960 Varsity was introduced as an 8-speed bike, but in mid-1961 was upgraded to 10 speeds.
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Many smaller corporations had been absorbed by larger firms or went bankrupt; in Chicago, solely twelve bicycle makers remained in enterprise. Competition became intense, both for components suppliers and for contracts from the most important department shops, which retailed the overwhelming majority of bicycles produced in those days. Realizing he wanted to develop the company, Ignaz Schwinn bought several smaller bicycle firms, building a modern manufacturing facility on Chicago’s west side to mass-produce bicycles at lower value. He finalized a purchase of Excelsior Company in 1912, and in 1917 added the Henderson Company to kind Excelsior-Henderson. In an environment of common decline elsewhere within the trade, Schwinn’s new motorcycle division thrived, and by 1928 was in third place behind Indian and Harley-Davidson.
In 1938, Frank W. Schwinn formally introduced the Paramount series. Developed from experiences gained in racing, Schwinn established Paramount as their answer to high-end, skilled schwinn exercise bike competition bicycles. The Paramount used high-strength chrome-molybdenum metal alloy tubing and costly brass lug-brazed construction.