Thrift Store Find: Schwinn Varsity

A business trip took me to my hometown Minnesota, and the best thrift store in town, Unique Thrift, had hidden away a Schwinn Varsity for the givitaway price of $35! Excellent fodder for a fixy project I'd been imagining for a while. JG025701 is the serial number on the head tube and signifies that bike was made in Chicago, in September of 1971. This places the bike squarely in the middle of its long production run of 1960-1986. While I thought I'd just post some pics and leave it at that, I am finding out that the history and engineering behind the bike is truly fascinating, so I thought I'd write a bit on that.

The Varsity has an interesting place in American bike culture. In 1959 less than 1% of lightweight road bikes made up the US consumer market. By 1987 (just before the dawn of MTB) they were over 60%. The Varsity was produced from 1960-1986. Thus, in the words of the linked author, "The Varsity is the single most significant American bicycle." While I'm not prepared to defend this claim, it served to pique my interest. Basically the Varsity, along with its upscale Continental sibling and the rare racer (and gorgously revived) the Paramount, were the American roadbike stars for the 60's, which were unfortunately overproduced into obsolencence like the Beetle or Model T.

What is also notorious about these bikes is how heavy they are! I'd say mine weighs at least 30 pounds. The reason for this is primarly the 1010 steel tubing, but was is of interest is how this tubing was constructed via the "electro-forged" process. As you notice there are no visible weilds on my bike--this is how it came from the factory.

This is the description of the process as described by Schwinn fan Marc Miller : "Schwinn... used coil strips of steel to produced its own tubing. The strips were fed through a series of rollers which shaped and sized them and prepared them for the final rollers, which passed an electric current to the edges. This was a continuous process, so immediately after welding, the bulk tubing was cut to the appropriate lengths. Having the capacity to make tubing was crucial to the viability of E/F frames, as the savings over buying pre-made tubing were enormous. Material handling, transportation and scrap costs were slashed to the bone by bringing this operation in house...To produce a typical E/F frame joint, the ends of two tubular frame components were held nearly together and clamped in copper jaws, which acted as anodes and cathodes. The edges of the adjacent parts served as electrodes and filler material. The edges had to be closely alignedn them. The relatively thin edges of the tubes became molten and the two parts were pushed together by hydraulic rams, amid a shower of sparks. This left heavy slag around the joint, but that was removed by belt sanders, lathes or scarfing pliers. During the joining process nearly 3/16" of adjoining material was burned away! The actual welding took only a few seconds compared to several minutes to weld or braze each conventional joint. With potential cost savings such as this coming into view it must have been exciting times at the Schwinn factory" Pretty amazing, huh! Simarly the head tube, bb, all the stays, and the rims were made by the "E/F" process.

Needless to say, I"m very excited about this find! Here are some pics to end this rambling post: