California Schwinns

[GeorgeET]

This weekend we had the yearly Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice CA.

A group of vintage bike fans from downtown showed up again. Some great old bikes fully restored or original. Could not get a photo of an old two person bike with some very interesting components. Looked like 40's.

[ghost]

(09-28-2011, 02:25 PM)GeorgeET Wrote:  This weekend we had the yearly Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice CA.

A group of vintage bike fans from downtown showed up again. Some great old bikes fully restored or original. Could not get a photo of an old two person bike with some very interesting components. Looked like 40's.

That is amazing! It is so nice to see vintage cycles brought back to their former glory, something that does not happen a lot here sadly. Do schwinn cycles still exist? I know they are an iconic piece of Americana and rightly so. Nice pics.

[KC-Steve]

(09-30-2011, 07:38 AM)ghost Wrote:  . . . Do schwinn cycles still exist? I know they are an iconic piece of Americana and rightly so. Nice pics.

Schwinn still exists as an Asian manufacturer. The old Schwinn went through a few battles with labor unions and they both lost out. Kinda like shootin' yourself in the foot, right? A bankruptcy around 1990 and another a few years later in the mid to late-1990s ended up with Schwinn closing their doors. Then around 1999, a former contractor for Schwinn, Giant, decided to buy the Schwinn name and restart production in Asia. Don't take my word as gospel, it might have been Giant's management that bought Schwinn, not sure.

So essentially it isn't the same company as the old Chicago Schwinn bicycles.
Here's an example of one of the last Chicago Schwinns (scroll down for more photos), http://forums.bikeride.com/thread-1239.html

Nice photos George.

Steve

[GeorgeET]

Ye thanks. Amazing thing seeing a large group of home boys on Schwinns. Very cool.

Only in S. Cal. :-)))

Man I so love the Super Le Tour you got KC. They varied greatly through the years but you got a good one.