General Cycling Discussion - Schwinn & GT to be in Department Stores.

So I hear that Schwinn and GT have been bought and the new plans for the lines are to build some real cheap bikes and sell them at Walmart's and what not. Is this the truth? That has got-to really boil alot of blood in alot of shops.

I think your information is sound. The real question is whether there will be higher-end models for bike shops and lower-end bikes for *-Mart, and, if so, whether the cheap stuff will irreparably damage the brand's image and "goodwill." I wish they would sell the *-Mart junk under a pseudonym to protect what is left of their formerly good name.

-- Proud owner of a REAL Schwinn (1988 KOM-10, hand-brazed in Greenville MS)

Pacific Bicycle's acquisition of Schwinn-GT went through in September.

Pacific's plans for the two brands is actually pretty comoplex, though GT will be the premium brand and not sold in X-Marts. Schwinn will be the step below...

For more information, you might want to read this article (http://www.bicycleretailer.com/bicycleretailer/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1485090) from Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

I might add that, with Huffy getting hammered by poor X-Mart sales in 2001, Pacific may re-evaluate its brand strategy by positioning Schwinn and GT even more upmarket.

The bottom line is that the future for these brands may not actually be as utterly grim as we all initially thought.

The owner of my LBS told me that higher end schwinns and GT's will continue to be sold at shops like his. And the lower end models will be sold at the X-Mart stores. But he does not know what will happen to the other merchandise that has Schwinns name on it. Like computers, gloves and other items. He did tell me that some of the stuff is hard to come by right now because of the buy out by Pacific.

BTW the merchandise such as computers and gloves is probably not made by Schwinn, but rather with their permission by a another manufacturer and as a private label product. But Schwinn does pay for it. The owner of my LBS does not know if Pacific will continue to have the merchandise with Schwinn's name on it manufactured or not. In the mean time he has increased his inventory of other brands of merchandise. He is not to concerned with the buy out, even if he loses his Schwinn line he has plenty of other brands to more then make up for it.