Mountain Biking - Shwinn Homegrown

I heard some great things about this bike so I searched and found it on ebay for about $250. I would use this bike for xc racing.

Is it worth it?

$250 complete or just the frame?

If I'm not mistaken, there were several different models of the Homegrowns. From $300 to $2000 bikes.

L8R

Some of the high end homegrowns were sweet hardtails. I saw one with a bass boat blue paintjob that kicked ass.

there was one in one of my MBUk mags i think... it was a Homegrown pro if im not mistaken, 2.9lb frame or something, and it was £800

complete
heres the auction(it'll probly go higher in price)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3654138558&category=27947

thats a nice bike, i'd go for it if i were you

complete
heres the auction(it'll probly go higher in price)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3654138558&category=27947

I have a yellow Homegrown Pro that I built from a bare frame. I would guess this bike will go for upwards of 800-1000 but I may be wrong. I think they lost some of thier appeal when the company got sold to Pacific. They are still terrific bikes and I love mine. I paid around 200 for a bare frame about 3 years ago. That was when people still wanted them.
Keep watching it and you may be able to steal it for cheap.

Good luck.

I just bought a 99 new Homegrown HT frame off of ebay for 150, they've become rarer and rarer, so if you see one, I'd get it.

yeah, it seems like a lot of people dont even think of schwinn because they associate them with department store bikes. Either way, I'm going to keep my eye on this one and maybe I can get it cheap.

Thanks guys!

One site, for almost all your needs. Research any bike here for owner reviews. Most people seem to be truthful, even if they figure out their bike sux... Also local trail reviews are very helpful. I've posted several dozen myself.

Enjoy yourself.....

I wasn't sure what year model you were speaking of, but here's a link you may like....

http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Bike/product_18786.shtml

Homegrown FS on the other hand suck compared to newer FS models...They have horrible bob, among other things.

Sorry, I didn't notice the year until I read your 2nd post.... Here it is on MTBR.com (no pic) but the eBAY auction has that already....

http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Bike_hardtail/product_25459.shtml

thanks sunny!

yeah, it seems like a lot of people dont even think of schwinn because they associate them with department store bikes. Either way, I'm going to keep my eye on this one and maybe I can get it cheap.

Thanks guys!

The selling to Pacific absolutely destroyed Schwinn's reputation with the lbs'. You will be hard pressed to find a schwinn or a GT dealer around anymore since the shops refuse to carry either.

Yeah, you find them at Wal-Mart, and then the somewhat better outfitted bikes you'll find for 250 bucks at sporting good stores, but the one shop in my area that I know used to carry Schwinn dropped them, but they still are considered the area experts on older Schwinn bikes.

If I'm not mistaking, both GT & Schwinn sold out of business to Pacific Cycles LLC in 2001.... Something on the news about it.

Yes, I was right. See 4 yourself: http://www.schwinnbike.com/heritage/timeline.php

we know that

Pacific just got bought by a company out of Montreal. Won't do any good, they say they will continue business as usual (i.e., screwing the LBS).
As was said before, that bike will probably get to around $800. Someone mentioned homegrowns going for about $300; I'm going to assume he meant around $1300 as that would have been more in line with the regular Homegrown. I've got two Homegrown Factorys (97 and 98), both variations on the bass boat. Awesome bikes with awesome paint jobs. Schwinn ceased to exist in my mind 9/11/2001, when the auction occurred.

Schwinn and GT still make bikes. While Schwinn only makes bikes that goes up to about $500 in price (yes, a bike shop quality bike); GT has improved upon thier I-drive as well as creating the I-drive2. Juli Furtado and Hans Ray still ride GT, so I doubt that the company would start to make absolute crap.

Most shops quit dealing with both brands because warranties and service were taking forever with thier being so much uncertanty about both companies.

^
Just to get technical, neither company actually makes any of their bikes, they're all outsourced. I assume most people realize that, but figure it should be mentioned.
Schwinn has several models above $500, though Pacific's "strategy" has been to have Schwinn as the value brand and GT as the performance brand. As was mentioned, their service had been pretty bad, though recently it seems to be better. Hopefully our shop will be able to drop them soon...

i got a moab which has the same/similar geometry as the homegrown that year but with heavier tubing, and i can tell you it's a very nice xc hardtail. the top tube is relatively long which helps climbing a lot. definately xc raceworthy

Yeah I saw that ad on ebay. You have to watch it on the ads with litle or no feed back available when dealing on ebay items.

I saw the Moab, I was debating between it or a Jamis Komodo, but then the Homegrown came up with a Buy it now thing, so I got the Homegrown :D