Since I'm posting this on the day after April Fools' Day, This it is not a joke. But some of the bikes you will see in it will seem like pranks.
As we all know, Schwinn was based in Chicago for a century. At the time it started building bikes, in the mid-1890s, about six dozen other bicycle manufacturers were making their wares in the Windy City.
Most, of course, did not survive beyond the first decade of the 20th Century. Still, Schwinn was big enough, and enough smaller companies remained, to ensure that the city on the shore of Lake Michigan would retain its status as one of the centers of the American bicycle industry.
And it's one of the places where adult cycling actually survived, at least to some degree, during the Dark Ages of cycling in the US: roughly the two decades following World War II.
Maybe it has to do with the water (Lake Michigan? The Chicago River? The Canal?): During the 1940s, a lot of "crazy bikes" were built there by ostensibly sentient grown-ups.
I don't know whether to have respect or to ridicule Art Rothman, who designed this one:
He's riding in the top position. Perhaps not surprisingly, he broke three ribs while learning how to ride it. Perhaps he recuperated on this Joe Steinlauf-designed bike-bed:
Once he got it going, I'm sure he got further on it than anyone who rode this machine:
Just in case you run into any gangsters (It's Chicago, after all!), make sure you have this:
Thirteen shotguns, two revolvers, six bayonets and a flare gun. They covered all possibilities, didn't they?
Now here's what we needed this past winter:
As we all know, Schwinn was based in Chicago for a century. At the time it started building bikes, in the mid-1890s, about six dozen other bicycle manufacturers were making their wares in the Windy City.
Most, of course, did not survive beyond the first decade of the 20th Century. Still, Schwinn was big enough, and enough smaller companies remained, to ensure that the city on the shore of Lake Michigan would retain its status as one of the centers of the American bicycle industry.
And it's one of the places where adult cycling actually survived, at least to some degree, during the Dark Ages of cycling in the US: roughly the two decades following World War II.
Maybe it has to do with the water (Lake Michigan? The Chicago River? The Canal?): During the 1940s, a lot of "crazy bikes" were built there by ostensibly sentient grown-ups.
I don't know whether to have respect or to ridicule Art Rothman, who designed this one:
He's riding in the top position. Perhaps not surprisingly, he broke three ribs while learning how to ride it. Perhaps he recuperated on this Joe Steinlauf-designed bike-bed:
Once he got it going, I'm sure he got further on it than anyone who rode this machine:
Just in case you run into any gangsters (It's Chicago, after all!), make sure you have this:
Thirteen shotguns, two revolvers, six bayonets and a flare gun. They covered all possibilities, didn't they?
Now here's what we needed this past winter:
