Schwinn Bicycle Company to sell off its past

Stingrays, the Black Phantom and more

From Correspondent Jeff Flock

CHICAGO (CNN) -- The gears, the baskets, the plans, the pieces, even the memos and the bricks from what once was the Schwinn Bicycle Company go on the auction block Sunday, officially putting an end to an era in American bicycling.

There is still a Schwinn Company, but the Schwinns no longer own it, and it is based in Colorado these days, not Chicago.

So the auction in Chicago Sunday will be bittersweet for Richard Schwinn, who is from the fourth generation of Schwinns to be involved in the company, and the one who must preside over the auction.

One of the items is a picture of Ignaz Schwinn, his great grandfather. There is also the oversized design for a lug frame. There are old bikes, copies of old ads, old biking magazines -- everything from handlebar bells to volumes of company memos to a picture of the old factory that once housed it all.

"When I was 9," Schwinn says, "my dad came home with a bike the likes of which I'd never seen before. It had super high-rise bars and a big, long seat, and it was a prototype of something they thought might sell called the Stingray."

Schwinn descendant now into new bikes

Stingrays, Orange Krates, the Varsity -- maybe the most popular Schwinn of all time -- and the classic Black Phantom, with its arcing black frame and fenders and its gleaming crimson and chrome accents.

"If you were a kid growing up in the 1950s (the Black Phantom) was the bike of your dreams," Schwinn says.

"In 1936," says a white-haired man in a business suit, wandering amidst the memorabilia, "I finally gathered enough coupons from selling magazines to turn them in and get a 1936 Silver King, an all-aluminum bicycle, and I still have it."

Biking is in Schwinn's blood, and he's in the process of building some new memories. He has started his own business in Wisconsin manufacturing high-end bikes.

"Sometimes it's better to look in the front window instead of the rear-view mirror," he says.

But there's an awful lot to see in that mirror.

Related sites:

• Schwinn
• Menotomy Vintage Bicycles

Tell us what you think! You said it...

© 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

Terms under which this service is provided to you.