Is Schwinn a Good Bike Brand?
Would love to hear from you. Thanks
To use with Zwift on a turbo trainer?
that depends - what do you need/want from a bike? "Schwinn is a true American original. From our humble beginning in 1895 to now, quality has been Schwinn’s “North Star.” They make lots of bikes for different riders, but whether they make one to suit your needs is up to you. I do think they make a decent product at a reasonable price that appeals to many people.
No, I purchased one a few years ago and regretted it. They used to be a great brand, but now they are cheap and not worth your $$.
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Schwinn is a “zombie brand” like Bell & Howell and RCA. They brand sub-par, “bike shaped objects” solely to collect money from the unsuspecting and funnel it to a financial holding company.
Avoid.
Find a local friend with extensive cycling experience. Measure your inseam and figure out what the right size bike is for you. Then, with the help of said friend, look at your local used market for bikes - you’ll get more for your money on the used market. (I bought several used bikes during the pandemic when supply chains were borked)
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The good Schwinn bikes were the Paramount…that model lineup was spun into a separate company called Waterford. The Schwinn name was taken by some investor group. Waterford, at some point, merged/joined with Gunnar. Both brands are now gone as far as I can tell.
Ditto what others have said.
I worked at a Schwinn dealer in the beginning of the end of the brand. They had Giant OEMing their bikes, and were transitioning to an unknown manufacturer (after kicking Giant for taking their brand retail) for their lower end bikes, and some of their other ones. The quality went downhill pretty quickly. Assembling them was a pain. The number that had such geometry issues making them nearly useless was increasing. I remember we got a frame that was so bad, it was shipped back. They started welching on warranty reimbursement, and the shop started bringing in other brands.
They sold a bunch of Paramount bikes, but even they dropped off. They picked up Trek, and BMX was still popular and they picked up more of the popular brands of the time. It got to the point where the only thing that drove people to stop in was the AirDyne, and even that was starting to have quality issues, sadly.
Schwinn went all in on killing unions, and ended up killing themselves according to an article I read some years later. The brand isn’t linked to anything redeemable, like so many brands out there now. It’s like a rock band with no original members. At what point does it all die? After they have dragged the name through the ditch 100 more times?
They are making money off the name only. Sad… Zombie brand. Fits…
The wife and I bought 2 Schwinn bikes (Bicycle shaped objects) for donation to a group looking for bikes for kids for x-mas. I went over both of them, and ended up replacing several parts on each, and they were still barely usable. I was shocked at how crappy they were. Yikes. It’s not that hard to do good bikes, but so easy to just phone it in and collect the money at the end. We could have saved money buying a ‘no-name’ brand and probably had better bikes to donate, sadly…
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