No Hands

The 1950s was the era of the Black Phantom, the Schwinn Bicycle Company's classic balloon-tire bike with chrome fenders that gleamed when you opened the garage door. These were the years when the name Schwinn was synonymous with bicycle, and the Chicago-based family company manufactured one of every four bikes sold in America. Since its establishment in 1895, Schwinn knew the pulse of its market, repeatedly reinventing its product to capture the consumer's imagination and bring to life so many of the designs that shaped each generation's idea of what made a real bike: high-rise handlebars, handlebar streamers, balloon tires, and banana seats. In sales, too, Schwinn redefined the way the industry operated, building the smartest network of local dealerships in the business. But Schwinn grew complacent in its third and fourth generations of family management. The company missed emerging trends like BMX and mountain bikes and mishandled the many challenges of global manufacturing until tumbling into bankruptcy and takeover by an outsider. Here is the unauthorized story of the corporate fall from grace of Schwinn, the very essence of Americana.

This new edition of No Hands includes a new chapter with original reporting by the authors on Schwinn's wild ride in the decades since its 1992 collapse.