Chrome and Schwinn: Love is Blind or Worlds Collide?

Chrome makes great bags for bike fashionistas–and makes them in America, mostly.

Chrome Fashionista

Schwinn used to make high-quality bikes in America, but now bikes bearing that name are made in China.

So what is one to make of a cross promotion in the form of a Chrome contest to give away a Schwinn tandem?

Chrome Win a Schwinn Contest

It occurs to me that my snarking about Chrome and Schwinn reveals my age. Get off my lawn, fashionistas!

And does anyone born after a certain date really lament the fate of Schwinn the way cyclists of a certain age still do? I reckon the target market for Chrome bags remembers the former status of the Schwinn brand about as well as they remember 8-track tapes.

A couple of months ago I saw a rusty old Schwinn tandem at a second-hand store. I thought, Those suckers don’t know what they’ve got. I’ll get it for $75. I was wrong.

They did know, and they sold it, no haggling, for $400. They sold it about an hour after rolling it out in front of the store, flat tires, rust and all. Probably to someone about my age.

What the hell. I entered the contest. But if I was determined to win, I wouldn’t have told you about it.

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