Strange sighting at the local Target
 

I have seen the Free Spirit of tomorrow. I was walking through Sporting Goods and there in the middle of the usual beach cruisers, MTBs, and pseudo-Schwinns was a road bike -- a 21-speed, V-brake aluminum-frame road bike! A closer look revealed the frame was the only aluminum to be found; everything else was steel -- rims, hubs, stem, bars, post. And stem-mounted friction shifters! Weighed close to 35 pounds. It was called a Vertical. Kind of a weird mix of '90s and '70s but still it was the only bike there I would've wanted to ride any distance. Anybody else seen one of these things?

Everyone should buy one, it might help keep friction shifting alive and help the price of the stock I own.

I guess I will have to go and look, while scoping out retro looking hot wheels cars for my kids.

I saw a cheap road bike at wallyworld last week. i'll get details and report back.
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One or two of my targets lists a photo of it (in men's and women's frame variants) in their little flip-page catelouge mounted to the display - but I have yet to see one.

However, my Wal-Mart has been recieving, for a while now, cheap 21 speed aluminum-frame GMC-badged roadbikes. Twist-grip indexed, with the shifters mounted on the straight, upper section of the bar. Yech.

My biggest surprise/laugh though, was when I spotted yet another brand of cheap roadbike at Wal-Mart. Pulled it out, and it turned out to be a Schwinn.

What got me laughing like heck is that the top tube had a decal on it - with the word "Varsity!" The components fit well with this terminology.

-Kurt

Yikes. A ride that combines the harshness of an aluminum frame, the additional weight of steel components, the obstacle-assisted braking capabilities of steel rims, and the gut-ripping menace of stem shifters. :eek:

Guess I shouldn't rag on it. It could have been worse - cantilever brakes (for your adjustment pleasure) and indexed twist shifters. :rolleyes:

There's a post about someone who recieved one of those new Schwinn Varsitys (from a girlfriend who was just trying to be nice!) over in the Road forum. I was tempted to ask him if it came with 27" wheels or 700c. ;) Schwinn Varsity

Yikes! :eek: There should be a law against that.

I had a chance to work on and test ride a 2005 Schwinn RD700 road bicycle this past summer. It had an aluminum frame with airfoil shaped down and seat tubes. The drivetrain was 24 speed Sora/Tiagra with STI shifters. The brakes were Tektro, dual pivot models. It had 700C wheels, though I forget the components. Everything was aluminum except for the usual steel bits like spokes, axles, spindles, skewers and bolts. It felt lighter than my vintage bicycles with Columbus SL and Campagnolo NR. The bicycle was certainly repsponsive and seemed to handle well during the short test ride. The only fault was a slightly uncomfortable saddle and inexpensive pedals. At $400 US, it seemed a very competent, entry level model.

You have stock in friction shifting????

Didn't the original owners of Schwinn go under by mass-producing this line of bike? I mean, are the present heads of Schwinn so not satisfied with that outcome that they wanted to try at it again and see what would happen this time around?

Don't get me wrong, I love my '72 Varsity a lot. But c'mon. Rereleasing onto the world a bike that's probably worst than it's Vintage cousins-by-marriage is pretty counter-intuitive.

Actually, Schwinn went under for a number of reasons, but I agree, that is the stupidest thing I've seen since Ford's retro 2 seat T-Bird.

I'm sure the company that currently owns the Schwinn name has marketing people who realize that the typical X-Mart bike buyer knows very little about bikes, and Schwinn is still probably the most famous brand in America. Combine that with an old model name such as Varsity, and something is likely to rattle around in their memory like, "hmmm, Schwinn Varsity, that sounds kind of familiar (maybe their mom or dad, or even granddad or grandmother, had one at one time). I'll take it!" Keep in mind, the other choice is something like a Roadmaster "Mt. Fury." It's all about marketing at that level. Sad thing is, the Schwinn name is now just that, a name on a decal, and nothing more. GT's another brand that falls into the same category............I believe both Schwinn and GT actually make some fair bikes these days, at a higher price point than you'll find at X-Mart (maybe at big chains like REI?), but again, what makes even these bikes a "Schwinn" or a "GT" is nothing significant, the name's just on the label-

The Schwinn is at least two steps up from the GMC Denali I saw at my local Wallyworld.
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Hmm. Aluminum and steel, there will be corrosion. Wasn't the 72 Varsity at least 5 owners ago?

this reminds me of picking my bike up from one of the LBS' the other day and I had to wait for the clerk to finish helping a women who was looking at the charriot (sp?) bike trailers which I believe are made in Canada and of good quality. This shop only carried that brand. As I looked at the wall of accessories etc.. it was very difficult not to listen to the conversation as the shop is so small. She must have asked the clerk at least 3 times if Schwinn made a bike trailers... It was quite humourous. The clerk explained patiently that he was fairly certain Schwinn did not make a trailer and that she should understand that this company (Charriot) only makes trailers, that is their focus, and because of that they put more into R&D and as a result offer a superiour product. He told her if schwinn did make one it would be poorly designed and made in china, he reiterated, at this time, that Charriots were made in Canada (Most people would like to buy a quality canadian product and support local markets). I wanted to jump in and go off on a big tangent about the fall of schwinn and the name being sold and that she should not associate it with quality anymore because a Schwinn is not actually a Schwinn. I held my tounge... the last thing the women asked before she left was "are you sure schwinn doesn't make one" I laughed on the ride home.

700C alloy for the Varsity, believe it or not. The GMC also has alloy 700C rims, but Schrader valves.

-Kurt

I was thinking this morning (that's always dangerous) What impact will these bikes have on LBS's? Will it hurt their business or, strangely, help it. On the one hand, will customers buy these road bikes at X-box stores taking sales away from LBSs or will these bikes serve as a platform for some of the buyers to recognize their desire to buy a 'good' road bike thereby increasing the number of cyclists resulting in more LBS sales of their entry level road bikes?

doesn't matter. Ebay is crushing the life out of catalog sales, lbs's, and box stores, in that order. Supergo is just the first to go.

Don't cry for Alan Goldsmith, he made out o.k., he sold while profitable, even got some bue sky money. He starterd out as Bikeology, sold a number of those stores and the name in the 80's built the first Supergo in Huntington Beach, just as Two Wheel Transit was wobbling with competition of two OTHER stores within walking distance!

Little known fact: Harold Jackson, son of Bob Jackson managed one of Alan's stores in the late 70's.

The truly sad thing about Schwinn is that Pacific Cycles, who own the brand, do not even get involved in the design of many of the Schwinn models. They license the rights for the brand and model names to the X-Mart chains, who may design the bicycles or select a design from their importer. It's not usual to see Schwinns within a specific store that come from two or three different importers and three different countries of origin. Consequently, there is there is little consistency within the brand, with lots of variation between stores and even between models within stores.

There are some decent Schwinn models out there, but you have to know what you are looking for, as there is lots of chaff to sift through to find a few grains of wheat.

True. Reminds me that I've seen a few NEXT (Wal-Mart) dual-suspension MTBs of the same '05 model with slightly different frame designs, and noticably different bottom brackets. Same for the Magna Exitors (Target).

Can't wait to find one of those new Varsities in the trash or at a yard sale. Will be quite interesting to see if it can be turned into a reasonably decent bike.

Can you imagine the '06 Varsity with a Suntour Winner Pro 7 road freewheel, and Suntour bar-cons? I can...

Take care,

-Kurt

Oh man, don't get me started on the full-suspension BSO's (Bicycle Shaped Objects) sold at discount stores............On the occasions when one of my oldest son's friends is here with one and I have to load it into the truck for one reason or another, I need my son AND his friend to help me lift the beast into the truck. For all the extra hardware those bikes are carrying in order to be "full suspension," they accomplish MAYBE an inch or two of suspension travel. And they feel sorry for my son because he's "only" riding with front suspension on his 28 lb. hardtail. They also think he's Superman because he never pushes his bike up hills, and rides circles around them otherwise. I just shake my head-

That, and a good percentage of your pedaling effort gets soaked up by the suspension. I do like to ride one occasionally though; it makes me really appreciate my road bikes. Hell -- it makes me appreciate my Raleigh 3-speed.

Hahaha! Don't forget that those cheap rear suspension systems soak up whatever energy you have left to pedal the damn thing. I get a laugh out of watching people ride these things, bouncing up and down in the saddle as if they were a jack-in-the-box.

It was also due to a rear suspension system that I took my first fall in four years. Those damn knobbys on the rear tyre's tread caught the edge of a sidewalk as I was climing up onto it, and the suspension system kept the rear end of the frame from climbing up onto the pavement from the grass.

Predictably, the "BSO" skidded out from under me (and continued skidding for about 15 feet) and plopped me on the sidewalk. That got me steamed pretty well.

I must admit that I was laughing as hard as I could, five seconds later, when I realized that the cheap front alloy rim had bent, even though no extraordinary forces had been placed on it during the crash. It wouldn't straighten by tensioning the spokes, so I simply whacked it a few times with a mallet. Sure enough, it straightened out.

-Kurt

There are Schwinn branded trailers sold for around $150. So, either the clerk was misinformed or was misleading the customer. I won't argue the obvious fact that Chariot trailers are better or that the real Schwinn is dead.