If you see a low-riding bicycle with high handlebars, shining chrome and a banana seat, you might think:
That’s one hot retro bicycle.
And, if you know bicycle history, that’s a Schwinn.
Schwinn Bicycle Co. shaped bicycle culture for decades while maintaining its strong Chicago identity through four generations of family ownership.
Schwinn long ago was sold and no longer is based in Chicago. But a devoted few keep the legacy of Schwinn alive.
If you were to walk along State Street in the 1890s, you’d see the road teeming with people riding bicycles in full-length biking outfits, with knee-length trousers for men and bloomers for women.
This biking craze was a result of the recent invention and mass production of the modern bicycle. Chicagoans were obsessed.
Ignaz Schwinn was a hardworking businessman who spent the first half of his life in Germany before immigrating to Chicago in 1891. He had trained under German bicycle mechanics and builders and was hungry to make a mark on the booming U.S. market. In 1895, he founded Arnold, Schwinn and Co. and bought a building to begin production.
In the decades that followed, he worked with his son Frank W. “F.W.” Schwinn to develop the company.
Judith Crown, author of “No Hands: The Rise and Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company,” says, “They realized they had to make something better, that it could be high-end, it could cost more, but it would be something that would really drive demand.”
Aiming to stand out in an increasingly crowded market, the company introduced the balloon tire in 1933. It was the first bicycle tire in America to use a double-tube system to withstand punctures better.
Ignaz Schwinn also befriended Emil Wastyn, a Belgian immigrant, and partnered with his racing company to produce Schwinn’s racing bike line, the Paramount.
In 1941, Alfred Letourneur rode a Paramount to break the world record for fastest motor-paced bicycle ride, topping out at over 100 miles an hour. Schwinn-sponsored riders often participated in races in Chicago with the world’s best athletes.
Emil Wastyn’s grandson Oscar Wastyn Jr. grew up hearing about these races and says that a good racer who rode in enough races “could make $100,000 a year in the ’40s. … That’s in the millions today.”
Starting during World War II, Schwinn executives realized the children’s market had huge promise. The company, imitating cars and motorcycles, began making bikes with gleaming chrome, fenders and plated headlights.
The Schwinn Apple Krate model, a later line of Stingrays, was inspired by motorcycles and muscle cars, complete with a gear-shift handle. Schwinn first introduced the Stingray in 1963 after visiting California and seeing that children were modifying their bikes.
“Schwinn Bicycles” by Jay Pridmore and Jim Hurd
“They wanted kids to really pine for these models and go to their parents and [say] we had to have it, and my friends have it, and be the coolest kid on the block,” Crown says.
Schwinn seemingly could do no wrong. It had the Phantom, the Varsity, the Stingray and the Collegiate. At its height of popularity in the 1950s, the company sold about 25% of all bicycles purchased by U.S. consumers — and they were all made in Chicago.
The 1970s brought another big bike boom. Exercise was in, and people clamored for bicycles. Schwinn couldn’t meet demand with its Chicago factory and began relying on importing bikes from Europe and Asia. The machinery at the Schwinn factory was aging. The company struggled to match the quality of overseas factories.
And mountain bikes and BMX biking had become all the rage. But Ignaz Schwinn’s grandson Frank V. Schwinn, then the head of Schwinn, wasn’t interested in change, according to Crown, who says he turned up his nose at others using Schwinn frames to make mountain bikes.
“The older executives just pooh-poohed it,” she says. This proved to be a catastrophic business move and the beginning of the end.
In the 1980s, Schwinn was in financial crisis. The new head of the company, Ed Schwinn Jr., Ignaz Schwinn’s great-grandson, plunged the company into ventures it couldn’t afford, like a failed Schwinn plant in Mississippi.
In 1991, the company filed for bankruptcy.
After trading hands many times, Schwinn Bicycles was purchased by a Dutch company called Pon. Today, it primarily manufactures kids’ bikes sold at Walmart and Target.
There are still signs of Schwinn’s impact on the city. On Fullerton Avenue in Logan Square, you’ll find Oscar Wastyn Cycles, a bike shop owned by Emil Wastyn’s descendants.
Oscar Wastyn Jr. and son Scott Wastyn at Oscar Wastyn Cycles on Fullerton Avenue. Oscar Wastyn’s grandfather Emil Wastyn was an early partner in Schwinn. In the back of a shop, there’s a small museum devoted to bikes the family built and raced.
Maggie Sivit / WBEZ
In an era that’s seen many smaller, family-owned shops like theirs close, Oscar Wastyn Jr. and his son Scott Wastyn mainly do repairs. But at the back of their shop is a small museum devoted to the Schwinn Paramounts their family built and raced and to Chicago bicycle history.
Oscar Wastyn grew up wandering the Schwinn factory floor and attending company picnics. He considered the Schwinns friends and family. Watching the company go out of business was heartbreaking. But the Schwinn legacy can’t be erased.