beware of the Wal-Mart crap

The Wal-Mart bike is ruining the reputation of many quality higher priced bikes. Most consumers will gravitate towards the lower priced good, no matter what the difference in quality of the choices. The Schwinn brand was sold to Pacific Cycle and the quality of the name was been on the decline.
Schwinn began to lose its quality in the 90s when they began to stop competing competitively with the other road bike manufacturers. Once the mountain bike craze hit, they were once again lagging behind the rest of the industry.
Sadly, Schwinn has begun to offer the Orange County Chopper Stingray for the youth market. Good job on capturing the youth market, but they neglected to give the bike any quality parts. The bike has such a bad brake down rate that the local bike shops refuse to work on “junk” bikes.
This is very sad for such a company rich in the bike industry. My first four bikes where Schwinns, which I still have two of those bikes, the Lil’ Tiger and Hurricane 5. I would never consider parting with these bikes. I am in the process of restoring two Phantoms. Even though the company has tarnished their name, the Schwinn bikes from the 1900s to 1970s are still some of the most collected bikes around the world.

Sale of Schwinn
Orange County Chopper Stingray
Discussion of Schwinn quality