bikemonkey
I live for the CABE
I saw Danny the Schwinn freak's Schwinn Cruiser in the Gallery uploads and I thought I would pass on an interesting tidbit on that particular model with tubular forks.
I worked in a very large bicycle shop in Virginia Beach back in the early 1980's and we were selling 1500+ bikes a years, plus mopeds, skateboards, etc.
Anyhoo...we also sold a ton of beach cruisers - all brands - couldn't keep them in stock. From MCS to Worksman it was a crazy market. We even contracted though Louisville Cycle to import containers from Taiwan with our own brand. If anybody from the area remembers the local cruiser gang, the Surf Nazis who were battling with the Surf Allies on the boardwalk, give me a shout out...crazy daze...
So, it was during this regional cruiser boom we were experiencing that the Schwinn Cruiser became a PITA for our shop to market, as compared to KHS cruisers, and other brands we sold. The Schwinns came stock with a painted bladed fork, "Jet" regular width handlebars, a standard stem, and vinyl grips. The bikes our young customers wanted came stock with chrome tubular forks, alloy block BMX stem, and Super Jet handlebars bars completely covered in black foam. Oakley grips were de rigueur.
As the market developed (more like exploded), almost every Schwinn Cruiser we sold was modified directly after the sale with chrome tubular forks, etc. with a nice little upcharge tacked on and we kept the hardware. The ones we didn't modify at the time of sale often came back to be modded when the kid had enough jack saved up.
The new bladed Schwinn forks, handlebars, grips, and stems that were removed were put in a big cardboard box in the back and soon the box became overflowing.
We bugged our Schwinn rep (Chris K.?) constantly about getting the company to catch up with the current trend and stock their cruisers like we modified them. Other Schwinn shops in the Tidewater area were experiencing the same phenomenon (and certainly other markets as well). Chicago finally figured out what was going on and when the first Cruiser finally arrived with stock tubular forks, etc., we were like, Yeah!...
In the interim, Schwinn agreed to buy back all of the hardware we had accumulated so that was a bonus as well.
Original version - courtesy BMX Bike Museum
From the 1984 catalog - Thanks Metacortex!
I worked in a very large bicycle shop in Virginia Beach back in the early 1980's and we were selling 1500+ bikes a years, plus mopeds, skateboards, etc.
Anyhoo...we also sold a ton of beach cruisers - all brands - couldn't keep them in stock. From MCS to Worksman it was a crazy market. We even contracted though Louisville Cycle to import containers from Taiwan with our own brand. If anybody from the area remembers the local cruiser gang, the Surf Nazis who were battling with the Surf Allies on the boardwalk, give me a shout out...crazy daze...
So, it was during this regional cruiser boom we were experiencing that the Schwinn Cruiser became a PITA for our shop to market, as compared to KHS cruisers, and other brands we sold. The Schwinns came stock with a painted bladed fork, "Jet" regular width handlebars, a standard stem, and vinyl grips. The bikes our young customers wanted came stock with chrome tubular forks, alloy block BMX stem, and Super Jet handlebars bars completely covered in black foam. Oakley grips were de rigueur.
As the market developed (more like exploded), almost every Schwinn Cruiser we sold was modified directly after the sale with chrome tubular forks, etc. with a nice little upcharge tacked on and we kept the hardware. The ones we didn't modify at the time of sale often came back to be modded when the kid had enough jack saved up.
The new bladed Schwinn forks, handlebars, grips, and stems that were removed were put in a big cardboard box in the back and soon the box became overflowing.
We bugged our Schwinn rep (Chris K.?) constantly about getting the company to catch up with the current trend and stock their cruisers like we modified them. Other Schwinn shops in the Tidewater area were experiencing the same phenomenon (and certainly other markets as well). Chicago finally figured out what was going on and when the first Cruiser finally arrived with stock tubular forks, etc., we were like, Yeah!...
In the interim, Schwinn agreed to buy back all of the hardware we had accumulated so that was a bonus as well.
Original version - courtesy BMX Bike Museum
From the 1984 catalog - Thanks Metacortex!
Last edited: