We’ve restored quite a few bikes over the years. This feature project post gives a more in depth showcase of another one of our favorites.
The notorious Jim Nachlin found this Schwinn in the trash and donated it to Nomad back in 2015. We finally completed the restoration in 2021.
By the 1930s, Schwinn had become the premier American bicycle manufacturer. However, by then, the American bicycle industry had been relegated to making very ornate and very heavy cruisers for children; adults did not ride bicycles. Schwinn observed that adults did ride regularly in Europe and a small trickle of higher performance European bikes were being imported into the states.
The New World was Schwinn’s attempt to stimulate the US adult bicycle market. The name implied that it was better to ride a bike from the new world rather than from the tired old world. Of course, the bike was a shameless copy of a Raleigh Sport.
The New World was introduced in 1938 and remained in production more or less unchanged until around 1951. They were offered as both a coaster brake single speed or with a 3 speed Sturmey Archer gear hub and caliper brakes. They were a better performing bike than just about everything else produced in the US at that time. But sales were not great. They were 20 years ahead of the times; American adults did not discover bicycles until the 1970s.
Our example appeared to be all original except for the saddle. Its serial number identifies it as a 1950 model. However, with its single speed, coaster brake, steel rims and obsolete tire sizes, it was a chore to ride.
We believe that old bikes should be ridden, not just collected and looked at. So, we tried an experiment with this restoration; rather than do our ussual “as it came from the factory” completely original restoration, we strived for a practical restoration, almost original but with a few minor modifications that would make the bike much more enjoyable to ride.
The original frame, sheet metal, bars and stem are retained. V Twins Cycle in Oyster Bay re-chromed the bars, stem and fork truss. Jack Trimble of Franklin Frame did his usual fantastic job repainting the frame and sheet metal to match the original Schwinn maroon color. He spent many hours hammering out and filling in all the dents in the fenders; they are perfect now. All the nuts and bolts were replaced with either new old stock or modern reproductions.
Some of the performance enhancing modifications that we made include;
The chainring is original and re-chromed. But the crank arms are non- Schwinn with the industry-wide standard 24 threads per inch bearing nuts (Vs 27 tpi threading that Schwinn used) This allowed us to replace the archaic open ball bearing one piece bottom bracket with a modern BMX sealed cartridge bearing bottom bracket, a much smoother, more durable and efficient set up.
The front brake is a Schwinn approved Weinmann brake and lever originaly fitted to a 1960s era Schwinn sting ray.
The rear hub is a US made Bendix two speed kick back hub. With a slight pedal backwards it changes from direct drive to a 35% reduction gear, making climbing much easier. These hubs were fitted on 1960s era Schwinn Stingrays.
The wheels sport modern 650B size Sun aluminum rims laced with stainless steel butted spokes. (they are only 6mm smaller in diameter than the original Schwinn S6 size rims) This allowed us to use modern high quality Panaracer tires. This combination of wheels and tires reduced the weight of the bike by a good 3 lbs. and significantly reduced the rolling resistance.
The saddle is a new old stock period correct Persons. Although the New World would not have come with a Persons saddle originally, they were one of the largest and best US saddle maker for most of the 20th century. And new old stock saddles like this don’t show up every day.
The end result is both gorgeous and very ridable. It rides similar to a Raleigh sport and would make a very comfortable and dependable daily rider.
In the end, it came out not too shabby, No?