Originally Posted by
kingsting
A lot of the Chicago Schwinns were Electro-Forged, I guess still considered welded but a little different compared to conventional welding.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/varsity.html
Earlier bikes were welded and brazed. My 1940 Schwinn DX balloon tire bike has joints that were welded, filed smooth and filled with lead. It also has some brass brazed joints on the stays.
Thank you for that link! That was a fabulous link that I had never read before.
I remember when many of my boyhood friends got Varsities and Continentals at Christmas in the early or mid-1960s. It was like many fads, every kid wanted one of these exotic 5 and 10 speeds. Even in cold PA, winter biking with the new bike was a big thing and you learned quickly that caliper brakes were not effective in the wet and snow like a coaster brake cruiser or Stingray.
Varsity Blue and Continental Orange were big colors with matching shiny bar tape. These bikes were nearly indestructable and we road offroad a lot on these and actually jumped curbs and small offroad whoop-di-dos, but had never heard the word cyclocross until the bike boom of the early 1970's and that was some exotic European thing. I only once remember one breaking, but his dad got it repaired by a welder at a local gas station.
By the time I was in college in the early 1970s they were out of style as heavy, and the new French, Italian and British lugged frames were the rage. About a year later the Japanese boom began in earnest.
Thanks for the Wayback Machine trip.