"No Hands" Is A Great Book About The Rise And Fall Of Schwinn.

[Goldenrod]

I know that we have mentioned it before but new people are being added each day. It is also the story of America. Try getting a copy on Amazon. Oops. I just looked. $165. Try your local library.

 

[Freqman1]

I scored one off eBay a few months ago for less than $20 shipped. V/r Shawn

 

[SirMike1983]

Got mine on eBay about 5 years ago after I read the shorter Crane's articles that spawned the booked. The book is a surprisingly entertaining read for a business-related one, but I think it's a little heavy-handed vilifying some of the people involved in the company and somewhat glosses over the broader economic forces at work in the demise of the company. The period from the energy crises through the early 90s were kind of malaise era in American industry overall. It hit the automotive industry hard as well, including companies with bigger markets and reserves than Schwinn had.

 

[SchwinnFinn63]

Can’t believe I’ve never read this book.

 

[Freqman1]

Got mine on eBay about 5 years ago after I read the shorter Crane's articles that spawned the booked. The book is a surprisingly entertaining read for a business-related one, but I think it's a little heavy-handed vilifying some of the people involved in the company and somewhat glosses over the broader economic forces at work in the demise of the company. The period from the energy crises through the early 90s were kind of malaise era in American industry overall. It hit the automotive industry hard as well, including companies with bigger markets and reserves than Schwinn had.

I agree with your synopsis and was a little put off by that. It seemed like they had an axe to grind with the Schwinn family. V/r Shawn

 

[Xlobsterman]

Got mine on eBay about 5 years ago after I read the shorter Crane's articles that spawned the booked. The book is a surprisingly entertaining read for a business-related one, but I think it's a little heavy-handed vilifying some of the people involved in the company and somewhat glosses over the broader economic forces at work in the demise of the company. The period from the energy crises through the early 90s were kind of malaise era in American industry overall. It hit the automotive industry hard as well, including companies with bigger markets and reserves than Schwinn had.

I haven't read the book, but I did work at a shop until the early 80's during the labor strike, and shortly after it was settled. IMO, this was the tipping point of Schwinn going towards their final bankruptcy?

Here is a good video that is related to the topic:

 

[SirMike1983]

Unionization, rising domestic costs, aging plant, and aging technology were important. That business about not investing in mountain bikes, maybe it played a role, but the role is over-stated in that video. I get the point he is making, but the issues were broader and deeper than resisting the mountain biking trend, even playing a part as that decision did.

Marc Muller's article on electroforged Schwinns points out the deeper problem: that years earlier, in the early 1970s, Schwinn was at a point where it needed to consider the next phase of frame manufacturing. It held onto the aging electroforge welding of thick-walled steel pipe model at a time when the market was shifting more and more to lugged frames and eventually materials like aluminum alloys.

Schwinn's fall from favor was both ironic and financially devastating. In the late sixties Schwinn invested heavily in the E/F machinery--machinery vastly more expensive to build and operate than required by lug frame fabricators. During the bike boom years Schwinn was building more than a million E/F frames and bicycles every year. At the same time, though, Schwinn revived one of its old trade names and began to import the "World" line of lugged frame bicycles from National and Bridgestone of Japan rather than build them in their own Chicago plant. [Note: Between 1971 and 1979, Bridgestone built almost 1 million bikes for Schwinn--about 4.5 times the number of bikes Bridgestone-Japan built in during the Bridgestone years of 1984-1994--Grant Petersen]. This, or course, only enhanced the reputation of the lugged frame and speeded the demise of the E/F frame. Schwinn didn't start making its own lugged frames until the late seventies.

I am often asked if the E/F frames could have been updated and continued in production. Marketing issues aside, I believe great advances could have been made, but the necessary metallurgical advances, namely the HSLA (high strength, low alloy; Nivachrome is an example) family of steels, came too late. These steels emerged from the auto industry in the late 1970's as car makers tried to reduce weight and increase strength to comply with federal mileage, emission, and safety standards. HSLA steels combine properties that before had been seemingly mutually exclusive. They're far stronger than the 1010 grade steels used in E/F frames, and they maintain their high elongation (meaning, they don't become brittle), so they're ideal for stampings, while their low-enough carbon content assures excellent weldability. The unique combination of high strength, high elongation, and excellent weldability would have allowed the stamping operations of the head and bottom bracket shells, and been well suited for E/F. The result would have been truly significant weight savings. Combined with a built-in aluminum kickstand, (which was a project under consideration at Schwinn) and a three piece crank, how does a sub thirty pound Varsity sound? (With more aluminum parts it could have weighed twenty-four.)


These changes were not to be, however.

Add to that the overall economic malaise, rising labor/materials/energy costs of the era, unionization debacle, and it's a bigger problem than mountain bikes or Ed Schwinn Jr. making mistakes. The process of setting Schwinn up for longer-term success probably needed to begin back in the late 1960s or at least the early 70s, but to do so would have required predicting the economic distress of the Ford and Carter years, something that would have needed a powerful crystal ball.

 

[Xlobsterman]

Unionization, rising domestic costs, aging plant, and aging technology were important. That business about not investing in mountain bikes, maybe it played a role, but the role is over-stated in that video. I get the point he is making, but the issues were broader and deeper than resisting the mountain biking trend, even playing a part as that decision did.

Marc Muller's article on electroforged Schwinns points out the deeper problem: that years earlier, in the early 1970s, Schwinn was at a point where it needed to consider the next phase of frame manufacturing. It held onto the aging electroforge welding of thick-walled steel pipe model at a time when the market was shifting more and more to lugged frames and eventually materials like aluminum alloys.




Add to that the overall economic malaise, rising labor/materials/energy costs of the era, unionization debacle, and it's a bigger problem than mountain bikes or Ed Schwinn Jr. making mistakes. The process of setting Schwinn up for longer-term success probably needed to begin back in the late 1960s or at least the early 70s, but to do so would have required predicting the economic distress of the Ford and Carter years, something that would have needed a powerful crystal ball.

Considering Mountain Bikes evolved into the world wide billion dollar industry it is today, I would say it was more than one of the nails in the Schwinn coffin!

But as we all now know there were many factors in Schwinn's demise. I was just glad to be an actual part of the Schwinn "Chicago Years" history with my time working at a Schwinn Dealer!

 

[drglinski]

I have it. Excellent read. Sad to see the demise of what happened.

 

[1817cent]

Good read. It covers the complete history of the company; the good, the bad and the ugly. It would be a good text to use in business schools.