My recollection was that for a lot of people, even into the early 1970s, that heaviness was considered a feature, not a bug. It indicated that the bike was solidly built. You had to have better knowledge than the average consumer did at the time to know that was nonsense--you could have quality and lightness was just not something people had experienced yet.

The so-called SCHWINN bikes now are not the same anymore. If I were rich, I would buy a 1970's Varsity and restore it to OEM specs down to every last screw.
You want quality in a modern bike, buy a Cannondale.

The nice Schwinn that I had was a 1983 World Tourist 5-speed in cinnamon red with Shimano freewheel chainwheel. The black grips had "Schwinn Approved" molded into them.
Some damn thief copped this bike when it was only a year old by cutting the chain lock and 1,000 miles were put on it including a 65-mile round trip from Novato to San Francisco, California in the summer of 1984. I was 19 in 1983 and this was my very first Schwinn. $279 back then from a Schwinn cycle shop in Mill Valley, California. I also got my first car and driver license that same year. A new Camaro. I got some money from a lawsuit from my mother. 1983: a new Schwinn, the dream came true after all the years of dept-store bikes and a new car!!

The 5-speed rear derailleur never missed a beat. Long-haul comfort on a men's 26" bike. I've always liked touring road bikes with straight handlebars. I never liked the look or feel of curved ten-speed bars. Some boys in school used to turn up the curved handlebars of their junior 24" Varsity and some older fellows liked to the same on their adult men's Varsity, Continental and other Schwinn ten-speed models: this was a common mod back then but I still thought it looked tacky. Pulling the tape off the curved bar and leaving it bare metal was also a common sight in the mid-1970's. You could get chrome fenders and a straight handlebar for your Schwinn ten-speed if you wanted to make it like a Collegiate or World Tourist tourer. Probably also had to change out the brake levers. On my new World Tourist, I soon pulled off the stock plastic thumb shifter on the handlebar and put a custom chrome Schwinn 5-speed shift lever on the stem of the handlebars reminiscent of 1970's Schwinn ten-speeds. Non-indexed shifting but still fun to shift by sound and feel.
https://bikehistory.org/catalogs/ima...ld_tourist.jpg

Ironic that Schwinn and Cannondale are now under common ownership.

You would probably do yourself a lot more good going to the vintage bike forums and seeing about how you might acquire decent old Schwinns for short money rather than posting "my Amazon bike sucks" one more time.
Old Schwinns are really common, you could probably get set up without spending as much as you did on your Amazon Schwinn.

But to get a mint-fresh paint job with all correct frame labels and markings from a custom bike painter is a lot more money than I care to spend right now. The best I can do with my current "Schwinn" Discover is swap out bad components for better aftermarket ones that's not too expensive such as the 7-speed freewheel, solid rear axle and chain. The bike I have has a nice frame but driveline parts that lack quality materials and precision out of the box. The stock lateral-pull rim brakes are great through.

Ironic, consindering how terrible Raleigh's reputation for quality was during the late 60s thru the 70s.
I chuckle when I read comments from posters on the C&V forum who worked in shops back then. The short rants they go on about how terrible the QC was is funny- misaligned dropouts, different fork rake, seatstays not brazed to seat tube, brake bridge terrible out of alignment, etc.
The frame builder I worked with last winter used to build for a shop that sold Raleigh and he has a love for old Raliegh bikes and described a period of time where he viewed them as a partially finished product due to needing to do so much correction work during the build up process.

Then Raleigh outsourced to Japan and built in Kent WA and thats a whole other period of time(with less frame issues).


Rough to claim that spoiled rotten = having a BMX bike. Really rough.

That nice "Schwinn" World Tourist was built in Taiwan by Giant, I believe.

In 1983, if memory serves me correctly, the frame said "Made in Japan". The frame also had the lettering "Schwinn Bicycle Company".

My cinnamon red frame had gold lettering. I read that 1980 was the last year for Chicago-made Schwinn and they went to Japan in 1981.

In the 1970's and 1980's Japan made was high quality including Toyota and Honda cars, Honda motorcycles and consumer electronics.

Just think of those expensive Sony Trinitron televisions in 1979 and those Sony and Technics home stereos.

My Schwinn World Tourist (a 1984 model, I think), bought at a garage sale in 2006 for $15 is quite nice and was made in Taiwan. Only change was replacing the original saddle with one I previously bought in 2000 for 5DM at a flea market in Frankfurt.

Baloney, I had a 1969 Sprite with the S5 IGH, a 1972 Sports with the 3 speed hub, and a 1976 Superbe with 3 speed hub. All were excellent bicycles with zero quality problems.

"...About 4 years latter, and after about 5,000 miles, the gears in the hub wore out and it was reduced to scrap. "

There's a difference between "cheap" and "frugal". My parents bought Schwinn because they knew the bikes wouldn't fall apart. Mine actually came from a neighbor, bought second hand. Frugal and cheap my parents were.

I had an Orange Krate, then a Varsity during the 10-speed craze. I beat the crap out of both of those bikes and never had any problems. It is too bad that there are cheap knockoff bikes that say "Schwinn" on them, but even the young hipster types pay good money for the real deal Chicago Schwinns. They're too young to be on a nostalgia trip so it must be the legendary ruggedness of those battlewagons.

These two real deal Chicago Schwinns were bought by an oldster (me) in 2006 for $5 each at garage sales and their ruggedness and reliability still serve me well with no fuss or muss. Only modification was replacing drop handlebars on the Varsity for upright bars from my own parts bin.

So basically, the whole point of this thread is you don't like your current bike, and you won't accept a bike more to your liking if it doesn't have mint-fresh paint and labels? Or is it you actually got a nice frame and brakes for a relatively low price?

In my opinion the best Schwinn, were the Schwinns made in the Giant factories

No the point to this thread is that there is no point, it is just clueless babbling about dreams of the good old days before life went off of the rails for a poster or two.

That green one is fantastic, and for $5. Wow, I never see them that cheap in Los Angeles.

+1. It's a "Seinfeld" thread. A thread about nothing.

Garage sales have loads of goodies. I bought this Schwinn Voyeguer for $15 because it looked so good, but got rid of it because it was just too small for me and drop bars are not really my cup of tea.









Occasionally, a trash day provides a real bargain. This bike had a Sachs Pentasport 5 speed IGH with coaster brake and was tossed out in Germany and luckily I found it.

I find these Schwinn threads fascinating as they (Schwinn's) were not a "thing" up here on the west coast. Raleighs and various Murray types dominate and the nostalgic link is often something to do with the Fred Deeley group.

I agree the thread seems to lack umpff and smacks of bitter nostalgia. If the OP wants an old Schwinn just go out and buy one. life is too short to complain about something you don't have when it is so easily within your ability to grasp. That's the great thing about bicycles as a hobby.

About a month ago I said to myself: Self, I'd like a bike with good vintage decals to do a classic FG restoration on. A month later I found a well preserved barn stored Raleigh for $80. You just have to look.

My college bike was a cross between a scrapped Continental frame and two speed Traveler components. A tough bike that could take any abuse - what those Chicago Schwinns were the very best at.
In the words of bluesman Howlin' Wolf :

Some folk built like this, some folk built like that

they are both crap

I hope that was an opaque attempt at sarcasm, because labor unions are far from their "peak power" in the US today.

As for Schwinn: they were done in by many factors. Seems kind of pointless to make a post about it when the ground has already been amply covered in many other sources.

Can't wait to see what kind of threads OP starts when he finds out what happened to Motobecane.

Hey! I still ride Motobecanes. Wait. You mean that they're NOT made in France???

(Shhh... since the fact that sometimes companies get sold is apparently blowing OP's mind, we might want to hold off on that news for a bit)