Frank W. Schwinn made it a point to know the factoryworkers by name. Workers trusted Schwinn and did not require a detailed writtencontract. An element of paternalism was evident between Schwinn and its employeesbut it was always correctly assumed that Schwinn would take care of itsworkers. Schwinn also was slow to embrace this new type of bicycleemerging from a trend in California. In California, teenagers and pre-teenswere fitting new seats and handlebars on their Stingrays to use them for bothtricks and racing. Due to the inability to handlethe new lightweight steels, Schwinn began to look for alternative ways to selllighter bicycles. Instead of modernizingto make the new bicycle lines in-house, in the early 1970s, the decision wasmade to import lugged lightweight bicycles from Japan. The BMX-style Schwinn Scorch and Schwinn Iris are solid, coaster-brake-equipped bikes that our testers genuinely enjoyed riding back in 2017. While the Scorch has a coaster brake plus a hand brake, the Iris has only a coaster brake. However, in our tests they were heavier than similar bikes we evaluated, and as a result these models were tougher for our tykes to maneuver without help. If you order the REV 16 to be delivered to your house, it comes almost fully assembled—you just have to screw the pedals onto their cranks. Finding a bike that fits is crucial to your child’s safety, especially since both oversized and undersized bikes can prove hazardous. Bikes that are too large can prevent a child’s feet from touching the ground and keep hands from reaching the hand brakes. Bikes that are too small, on the other hand, force a child to pedal awkwardly with substantially bent knees, which can cause knee pain and make a child’s legs tire quickly. Frank V. Schwinn had to decide whether hiscompany should continue a “Made in America” tradition that had served it well forseveral decades. He also had to deal with an aging and antiquated Chicagofactory. Despite all of these problems, Schwinnwas still a major force in the bicycle industry in the USA throughout thedecade. Frank V. Schwinn had a more relaxed management style andrelied heavily on seasoned managers such as Al Fritz and Ray Burch.