Schwinn Aerocycle

The Schwinn Aerocycle was a streamlined balloon-tyred youth bicycle introduced by the Chicago firm Schwinn in 1934. It grew out of the Schwinn B-10E Motorbike of 1933, a child's bicycle styled to imitate a motorcycle, which the company revised the following year and renamed the Aerocycle. F. W. Schwinn, who had taken over day-to-day running of the business after the motorcycle trade collapsed and who had travelled in Europe for ideas, persuaded the American Rubber Company to build 2.125-inch-wide balloon tires for it, and the machine added streamlined fenders, an imitation fuel tank, a streamlined chrome-plated headlight and a push-button bell. The styling made it a landmark of the American cruiser tradition, and the type later became known as the paperboy bike or cruiser. A second history of the company dates the announcement of the Streamline Aerocycle to 1934, calls it a major change from what bicycles then looked like and credits its popularity with helping Schwinn's finances through the recovery from the Great Depression. The Aerocycle has no Wikipedia article of its own, so this entry rests on the account of it within the article on the Schwinn Bicycle Company and on the company history at bikehistory.org.