Electro-Forged Bicycles—Just the Standard Greek Tragedy

The Greek Tragedy is a standard theater and literature formula and through time immemorial has proven to be a classic story-telling vehicle.  From the works of Sophocles to Euripides and all of the purveyors of the genre, the standing constant in the Greek tragedy is always the hero.  The hero is unmistakable in that what makes him powerful and unique always leads to his downfall.  The hero’s greatest attribute is at the same time his weakest quality and it destroys him in the end. 

The SBT mentions the Greek tragedy as a way to summarize the epic collapse of American bicycle manufacturing.  By now, many of you, dear readers, have uncovered the SBT crew’s love of old Schwinns and we are talking about the Schwinn before the outsourcing to Asia--the Schwinn of Chicago.  

In a previous Schwinn-themed post we decided not to outline the history of the company's decline.  In this post we are simply trying to find the source of the decline and we think we can trace it back to a Schwinn-championed technology: "electro-forging."  But first...

   

Schwinn is a Greek tragedy; its greatest strength was its fatal weakness.  From Ignaz Schwinn’s first bikes to the company that bore his name, the machines he and his workers created were hand-built.  Mr. Schwinn put his name on the line and on his bikes, the company left behind the conventional wisdom of building bikes for the large department store chains and branding the bike with the name and logo of whatever store was selling the machine.  Instead, Mr. Schwinn decided to sell “Schwinn” and the bikes would be sold through hardware stores or bike shops that would be Schwinn-specific retailers. During the company's ascent of the 1950s, Schwinn grew stronger and secured more and more market share.  

The company seized upon the derailleur quickly and a variety of “ten-speeds” came out of Chicago and into the suburban garages and streets of the United States throughout the 1960s.  Later, the idea of electro-forging allowed the company to build more bikes faster and cheaper and it is at this point we begin to see the decline. 

Since the earliest uses of fire, the forge was part of the building process of just about anything.  The heating of most metals will lead to the material changing composition.  These molecular changes allow products to be created from raw material or allows the modification of an existing product.  Later, coal permitted forges to burn hotter, longer and the coal-powered forge helped usher in the Industrial Revolution.  Schwinn took the fire from the forge and replaced it with electrical current.

The electro-forge technology used by Schwinn was a process of sending high-heat current through the tubing and into the joints in order to seal the parts together.  It was a form of soldering almost.  What it did was eliminate welding.  That welding was done by hand and by humans.  In the 1960s and for decades hence Schwinns were electro-forged by machines.  Schwinns were now massed-produced on one of the grandest of scales--cheaply.  Later, the company realized that electro-forged technology could be outsourced to Bridgestone in Japan and Panasonic in Taiwan and the cost per-unit dropped yet again.  At the same time in the United States, Schwinn’s American manufacturing plants did not change with modern updates and processes.  It was now too late, Schwinn’s great ascent into technology was forgotten and old methods were killing the company.  

The bicycle boom of the 1970s brought lightweight bikes built with a human touch to the global market.  New bike builders were using alloys and aluminum while Schwinn was still electro-forging steel.   Schwinn was one of the first large manufacturers to grasp new technology early on, yet when new technologies were required later, Schwinn failed to capitalize on the evolution of skills, people and machinery.  

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