The Schwinn Vault

I started searching craigslist for bikes in July and came across an ad about a bonanza of Schwinn bicycles and that it would be open tomorrow afternoon. I am lucky to work out of my house and most of my clients are out of state so it's easy to jump on a bargain in the afternoon while others are occupying their cubes.

I arrived a little late but I was the second person into the storage unit, inside were Schwinn bikes sorted by color in 2 levels, it looked like mostly road bikes & townies so I thought I would grab a few to flip to help fund the habit.

The bicycles were packed in very tight, pedals removed and man it was hot! The second story was accessed by a ladder and was kneeling room only in 80 degree heat. After helping the first person get his 3 bikes out by sliding bikes over 1 by one, then passing the bikes to others below for purchase it was my turn. as I crawled around with a flashlight, I found a dusty Schwinn Hollywood with beautiful white walls and the tires still had the hairs on them. I quickly pulled it and passed it down, then shuffled for the next find, it was a Schwinn Catalina, didn't really know what it was but it was a cruiser and looked like a female Schwinn Corvette and looked new except for the dust. Grabbed a couple townies and crawled down to buy my cache.
After getting to see them in the sun, I noticed the Catalina had an unusual shifter on the handlebars, it was a Bendix 2 speed shifter, later at home I found out it was pretty rare and only made one year, 1958. Great deal for a hundred bucks, my youngest daughter took the Schwinn Hollywood, and I gave the Catalina to my wife as I had converted a Purple Schwinn Hollywood for her to a Sturmey Archer 3 speed but the gearing wasn't right, I think the tires being a little smaller than the townies changed the gear ratio, will have to play with that.