What do the terms lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight mean?
- Thread starter Rusty Hood
- Start date
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Lightweights are crap like schwinn breeze's and racers, smaller tired than middleweights. Middleweights are generally 1.75" wide tire'd bikes. Heavy or balloon tire'd bikes came with 2.125" wide tires and are the only ones that matter. 
Yeah, what he said.... 
Seriously, among vintage American-type bikes, the heavyweights /balloonbikes are 2.125"+ tires and are usually cruisers, the middleweights are cruiser-type bikes which pretty much always came with 1.75" tires from the factory (many middleweight frames can fit balloon tires, though...) and lightweights are any bikes that came with tires <1.5" wide.... this pretty much goes across all tire sizes (20, 24, 26, 27"...) and lightweights were (rarely) cruisers, but more often commuting bikes or road bikes... In a nutshell, it all comes down to the width of the tires.
In more general cycling circles, "lightweight" can mean a number of different things, depending on who you ask, the criteria may well be different.
Personally, i think that a lot of vintage "lightweights" have tons of character, even if a Schwinn Racer or Collegiate is ANYTHING but lightweight. MY favorite Schwinn i've ever owned is my Super Sport, and my "Holy grail" Schwinn is still probably a Paramount track bike.... any yea, really, so log as it's Chicago-built. Lightweights are cool, but by far the least popular amongst RRB folks, overall. Middleweights are popular, but a lot of effort is put into finding ways to squeeze balloon rubber between the stays.... I've seen a lot of cool "Custom" styled bikes, on this site and elsewhere, sporting at least one skinny tire....
Seriously, among vintage American-type bikes, the heavyweights /balloonbikes are 2.125"+ tires and are usually cruisers, the middleweights are cruiser-type bikes which pretty much always came with 1.75" tires from the factory (many middleweight frames can fit balloon tires, though...) and lightweights are any bikes that came with tires <1.5" wide.... this pretty much goes across all tire sizes (20, 24, 26, 27"...) and lightweights were (rarely) cruisers, but more often commuting bikes or road bikes... In a nutshell, it all comes down to the width of the tires.
In more general cycling circles, "lightweight" can mean a number of different things, depending on who you ask, the criteria may well be different.
Personally, i think that a lot of vintage "lightweights" have tons of character, even if a Schwinn Racer or Collegiate is ANYTHING but lightweight. MY favorite Schwinn i've ever owned is my Super Sport, and my "Holy grail" Schwinn is still probably a Paramount track bike.... any yea, really, so log as it's Chicago-built. Lightweights are cool, but by far the least popular amongst RRB folks, overall. Middleweights are popular, but a lot of effort is put into finding ways to squeeze balloon rubber between the stays.... I've seen a lot of cool "Custom" styled bikes, on this site and elsewhere, sporting at least one skinny tire....
