Poor Schwinn:(
 

Here is some thing from Speedgoat's Interbike page. I saw this on another site and thought some of you might be amused.

"Honorable mention 4th place runner-up in our countdown of the three most impressive things at Interbike has to be everything the 'new' rear suspension design on the Schwinn bikes represents. Let me explain: pretend hypothetically that you're an engineer with a decent job at Schwinn. Somehow you've survived the most recent corporate implosion and resulting sale to Pacific, purveyors of the finest bicycles available for $49.99 at the local Mega-mart. The executive officers of your company routinely misspell 'bicycle' on intra-office memos. When you're introduced to your new cubical-mate, the Mongoose engineer, he slips you a note that reads 'please kill me.' You were supposed to meet with the only engineer held over from GT Bicycles to discuss incorporating Why-drive technology into the design of your $228 S-30 full-suspension frame, but he was last seen wandering into the desert twitching and murmuring incoherently. By week three, you notice there are no longer any CNC machines outside your office, and by week four your CAD/CAM development computer is taken away from you because 'it looked like you were playing games.' You draw designs on red and yellow paper you steal from the company daycare room at night. Weeks go by. Sitting in traffic one day on the way to work, you suddenly turn the radio up all the way and bang your head off the steering wheel of your late model Honda Civic. Looking up, you see Janie from the sales department slowing to pass in her company BMW, smiling cautiously at you and pointing to your face. Only later do you find that your nose is broken. Somehow, some way, you turn the mess of garbage requests they've given you into something like a floating bb design. It looks and rides like a shovel falling down steps, but darn it, you did it. In the face of primordial stupidity, greed, and malicious mediocrity, you created something. We have to award that."

Yeh, our shop sells schwinn-- its been kinda questionable of what they may be coming out with...

Dirtbikedude, that was great writing. You are either a talented writer, or an engineer who has experienced downsizing and overseas take-overs, or both.

Schwinn is a good example of what is happening to all USA manufacturing. First, the manufacturing jobs go overseas, but the engineering is retained. Then the engineering jobs go. Sales will remain as long as there are people in the USA with jobs to buy bikes. Of course, that might be a ways in the future as the formerly employed are economically forced to downsize their transportation from automobiles to bicycles.

The reality is, though, many business decisions made today are based on survival. The choices are; Out-source manufacturing overseas, sell the company, or die.

Like so many people who owned a regal Schwinn, or owned a Huffy and watched enviously their friends' Schwinns, I wish that Schwinn USA could have survived and maintained their prestigue and commitment to unique high quality. That, however, just isn't where the market is today.