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, the company sensed what Americans wanted and innovated first and fastest - bringing 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.

Its executives and engineers snickered at the first mongrel mountain bike - pieced together with elements of the old Schwinn Excelsior - only to watch it become the most important bike trend of the 1980s and a challenge Schwinn would prove unable to meet.

This is the unauthorized story of the corporate fall from grace of Schwinn, the very essence of Americana. With a backdrop of a century of rich cultural history, the authors follow this highly regarded American business to its ultimate descent into bankruptcy and takeover by an outsider.

The book explores the pitfalls peculiar to family-owned companies, but it is also a cautionary tale of what can happen to American manufacturing as it is catapulted into the global arena and high technology of the twenty-first century.