When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Krate fakes

-
Yeah, I remember SunTour was always more expensive than Shimano, but still far less than Campy.
I never understood what justified the higher prices, seemed like Shimano was always neck and neck with them in technology and machining.

Huret and Simplex, sacre blue!, never seemed to be able to catch up. Simplex had some nice stuff but Huret had been a dinosaur as long as I could remember.

Campy was just expensive. I guess it was better than everything else but I frankly couldn’t tell much difference for the price.

I didn’t know SunTour invented SIS.
It’s been a good system, but before it was developed we could index our own gears, on racing bikes, with as much precision, and much faster, with our hands on the levers due to muscle memory. I could pop the exact gear I wanted without even thinking about it. A good rider could even shift gears with their knees while climbing.

Brake lever shifting was a definite improvement though.

My only gripe against Shimano is that they never developed a Manhattan Project to drop the chain system and develop a belt drive. I guess they tried for a long time, to no avail. But hey, Seiko took years perfecting Spring Drive. They never gave up and it finally succeeded.
If anybody could have done it it was Shimano.

I am reading No Hands right now.
Good book.
Sounds like many US companies, a bunch of big chief wannabes more concerned about power and position, (and partying), than being a fiduciary for the company. Sounds exactly like Detroit, or almost any company now.

The book brings up an interesting point that I hadn’t thought of, that being the idea that Schwinn quality went downhill after 1973. Even as kids we used to remark how fit and finish wasn’t as good as it had been, and believe me, Shwinn F&F was in another league compared to AMF, Huffy, Murray and the rest. It just went downhill from there. By 1976 I was more interested in cars than bikes and definitely more interested in European bikes than the hopelessly antiquated Schwinn offerings, Paramount excluded.
 
If you go back to 1967, When Frank Jr took over one of the first things I saw happening was losing chrome on kickstands, seat clamps and other small parts. I guess kids wouldn't notice or care that silver Cadmium or zinc plating was not the same as chrome.
It took a while but more cost cutting including in R&D came when the bottom line became more important than the quality customers were used to.
Going out to feed the homeless cats, but later if you want I can explain my Third Generation company killers theory.
 
Car collectors have been putting up with it for years. All 442s are now W30. All 57 Chevy Bel Airs have Tri Power. Watch the auctions. Every Malibu is an SS. Every hobby has these issues. How about the poor suckers that spent millions on fake art. But it is a fun topic.
In the car world, at least SOME say it's a tribute car; in the end, it has to be a numbers matching car with some docs to lend authenticity.
 
If you go back to 1967, When Frank Jr took over one of the first things I saw happening was losing chrome on kickstands, seat clamps and other small parts. I guess kids wouldn't notice or care that silver Cadmium or zinc plating was not the same as chrome.
Not exactly ^^^

Many large US company’s, GM, Ford and Schwinn contributed to the war effort as this Schwinn Reporter explains.

6A80FB7E-4698-4D29-B719-AD52400EA53E.jpeg
 
OK, Here goes nothing.
Ignaz Schwinn was a great inventor and genius who started at the bottom and knew how to work hard.

He brought up his son Frank W. Schwinn the same way. Frank Sr. was as smart as his father although I personally believe his inventive skills were a little overrated. Ask me about the Spring fork.

Perhaps his dad was hard on him, because there is no real mention of his son Frank V. Schwinn starting out at the factory sweeping floors. Perhaps this had some bearing on his way of running a business since he was probably handed life on a platter. He did not invent anything we heard of and made lots of money for not doing it.

We saw the results of that line of thinking, R&D suffered some, but the worst was yet to come. Under Frank V.'s reign the Stingray died to BMX and his solution was to build a Stingray with BMX handlebars. He had Skip Hess (of Mongoose fame) in his corner and dropped that ball too. Mountain Biking? Ditto.

Meantime Frank V Schwinn raised a teenie weenie weenie of a son , Edward R. Schwinn.
When he took over the company one of his early moves was to move one of the last remaining marketing geniuses (whom he did not like much at all) Al Fritz, the father of the Stingray to a division building excersize bikes. Yeah, those things that cost too much, go absolutely nowhere and the most excersize a lot of them see is when the junk man throws them on a truck to be made into new Chinese bicycles.

We all know the rest of the story. Now our once proud Schwinn name has been pimped out to a variety of half assed tin foil and popsicle stick bicycle makers who, other than the 1995 Phantoms and the early re-release Krates were lucky to produce bicycles that were rideable when they left the department stores and certainly were not rideable by the next spring.

Well, there you go. My take on the History of Schwinn Bicycles.

Somebody tie me to the whipping post. I can see the line forming from here.
 
Not exactly ^^^

Many large US company’s, GM, Ford and Schwinn contributed to the war effort as this Schwinn Reporter explains.

View attachment 1747013
I see that, but I also didn't notice near as much chrome loss on any cars then. Styling changes eliminated some certainly but there were no styling changes to eliminate chrome from seat clamps. not to mention many other bicycle manufacturers were still chroming whole frames into the 1970s and 1980s.
I do respect your info.
Rob
 
How many fakes do you think are out there?

I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?

I know cotton pickers, grey ghosts and sunset orange krates were just one year, but other than those, what are the hardest to find krates? I seem to see a lot of pea pickers and lemon peelers, not so many orange and apples.

Any estimates of how many of these, not including barn finds, are really left?
Do you think there are still many around and people just aren’t willing to part with the real ones anymore?

Thoughts?
1972 Pea Picker also 1 year only

E7DEE3E2-7460-44BE-BBFB-C96BF27F76F9.jpeg


E604797A-1418-4279-9744-457D9DE4345F.jpeg
 
How many fakes do you think are out there?

I see a lot of these with many wrong parts on them. I understand that not everyone cares what nuts and bolts are correct and that apparently a lot of kids lost parts while “fixing” their bikes. However, do you guys think the sellers just don’t know what they are advertising or do you think a lot of these may be frames just hobbled together with generic parts?

I know cotton pickers, grey ghosts and sunset orange krates were just one year, but other than those, what are the hardest to find krates? I seem to see a lot of pea pickers and lemon peelers, not so many orange and apples.

Any estimates of how many of these, not including barn finds, are really left?
Do you think there are still many around and people just aren’t willing to part with the real ones anymore?

Thoughts?
I’m sorry but you require a vocabulary lesson:
hobble is to tie two legs on a horse together so he can’t run away
cobble is to repair or assemble something in a haphazard manner
 
Back
Top