My girlfriend replaced her Schwinn with a Trek 510. It was found by a friend of ours who's a Vintage Trek Guy. From what I can tell by looking at the catalogs online, they made a comprehensable line up of medium to high end racing, touring, and sporting bikes. Even the low end Treks look to line up with other brands mid-grade offerings.

I picked up an '84 Trek 610, and it seems like a really nice commuter. It's comfy, seems to like high speeds (but not aggressive acceleration) When you wind it up to 14 or 15 MPH it gets nicely floaty and "wants" to stay at a higher pace.

But I've seen guys who LOVE Treks and collect only Treks, and guys who HATE them. I could see if you had a bad experience with a heavy Schwinn that might color your opinion of Schwinns. But Trek doesn't seem to have ever made an anchor.

I myself don't have any Schwinn interest but I know some were made in Japan and VERY nice. And I love Miyata's but I realize that while very well made they aren't exactly what you'd call light.

So what's the deal?