Schwinn Phocus Adult Road Bike, Aluminum Frame

This is my first review after just partially assembling it. I bough it “like-new”, with 40% price reduction compared to the price of a new. It came with missing parts, namely, the screws that are needed to secure the handle bar to the steering column, are missing. Now I have to go on a hunt with the manufacturer, and potentially pay some more money to get the missing screws. Otherwise, there was one bent part that made it hard to mount the front wheel, but I managed to handle that.

This is an update after day2:
I finished assembling the bike after finding some screws in a friend’s workshop. Adjusted the seat to my liking, and tuned the brakes – front and rear. Also on the shifters, I had to adjust the front derailer as it was making some scraping sound under certain circumstances. That’s good now. The only thing left is some mild scraping sound coming from (I believe) the front brake. What’s funny is when I lift the front wheel and spin it, there is no scraping sound. When I lift the rear wheel and spin it, there is not scraping sound. But when I ride, there is…
But that’s no issue at all. I took the bike to a spin and got a few 100 yards of test run. I’m disappointed by the brakes. They require hard squeeze to get the rear wheel lock up on asphalt, and at the hardest squeeze of the front brake I’m in no danger of falling over the steering bar or raising the rear wheel off the ground. I expected better than this. Few years ago, I had a $100 walmart mountain bike. It had rim brakes and they worked better than these disc brakes. I thought disc brakes would be much better than rim brakes. Maybe I just need to use them more and they will become better? Only time will tell.
On the bright side, the bike is light, and fun to ride, and despite what I wrote above, the brakes do provide sufficient stopping power. I’ll have to get out on a few longer rides to gather more experience with this thing. For now, it works, the ride is smooth, quiet, the bike is light, the shifters work and the brakes are also “ok”.

Update a few months later:
This is an awesome bike. The brakes work well now, the scraping sound is gone. Easy to ride, I have 15-20 mile excursions with it and it was fun. The way I bought it (40% discount for like-new, with some issue that were easy to handle), it definitely worth it. I contacted the manufacturer at one point for help, they said this thing was under no warranty. So keep that in mind. No support – no warranty. Any issue you can’t handle, you have to take to the local bike shop and pay for the work. I didn’t have to do that.

It’s been a while since I’ve bought a new bike. Never considered buying a Schwinn because I associated the brand with being cheap and old school. Since college I’ve owned a Nishiki, Giant, Specialized, top of the line bikes. I bought this bike purely based on price as nowadays I’m more a leisure rider. I have to say upon arrival I’m impressed with Schwinn’s quality. The bike was packaged extremely well, instructions to put the bike together were easy (about 30-45 minutes), extremely light weight, and looks great. Despite ease of assembly I suggest taking it to a bike shop and have them ‘tune’ it (about $60) after you put it together or $100 (approx) for both assembly and tune. That way you can be assured everything is calibrated and adjusted properly. Overall I’m very happy with the quality of this bike.

I have this bike for almost 7 years. I rode more than 15 thousand miles using it as road/hybrid heavy duty commuter.
Once again, getting new pedals and seat. Another chain and cassette worn out. Still I don’t see a single reason to change this bike. It is damn perfect. Light, maneuverable and controllable, durable. I can’t believe I got this beauty on sale for 415 bucks, definitely worth twice that.

Bike looks great but don’t how it rides yet because I have been able to ride it due to damage. Box was damaged on arrival, obviously not manufacturers fault. But they could do a better job at protecting the bike. Fairly easy to put together, instructions are worthless and make no sense. But not rocket science to figure out on your own. Lastly, front brake barrel adjust was split in two. Therefore, breaks do not work. Contacted warranty company and haven’t heard back in over a week.

I wanted a sturdy all purpose bike to ride on the trails and this bike delivered. I would buy it again.

I am no great shakes with tools, and I put this together with no trouble. The gears and brakes were adjusted properly right out of the box, though they needed tweaking after the cables had stretched out from use. The tires were fully inflated right out of the box. Either some Chinese factory workers are doing far too much work for far too little money, or Chinese robotics are getting scary good. It was not thus in the old days. We were tough in the old days. It sucked in the old days. This is much better.

Aluminum frame, carbon fiber front fork, good components throughout. I think this must be a loss leader to try to re-establish Schwinn as a popular brand, because it is a lot more bike for a lot less money than one would expect.

This is hands down the best bang for your buck road bike on the market! I did a lot of research before buying this bike and it stacks up against bikes more than twice the price! The aluminum frame and carbon fork ride like a dream! I road it on a 50 mile ride this past summer among other lengthy journeys and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. As with any bike make sure to check every nut and bolt during assembly. They’re not always torqued to spec from the factory. In my case the bottom bracket lock ring needed a little snugging up. If you’re looking to get into road biking this is the bike for you!