The Budweiser of bike brands sponsors a team

The new Canadian owners of Cannondale, Dorel, also happen to own Schwinn -- maybe one of the world's oldest and most abused bike brands. They bought them back in 2004.


Schwinn has always been more of a presence at bike shops and garage sales than at races or philanthropic events. (Right now, the Schwinn "team" consists of one BMX rider: TJ Lavin.)

But today, Schwinn signed up to be the first major bike sponsor of Team in Training, the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society's running and cycling program that about 40,000 people participate in each year. That complements another cool project they're already involved with, Tom Ritchey's Project Rwanda. Schwinn helped Ritchey design and build work bikes for Rwandan coffee farmers that are currently being rolled out with help from the Scallywags. (Neat how everything is connected thataway, huh?)

Now if they could step up to the plate and ask people to stop converting all those old Varsities and LeTours into fixies, that would pretty much guarantee Schwinn's place in Heaven. Of course, as everyone knows, travelers carrying a Canadian passport always get into Heaven without a hassle.