The Greenline bikes are a line of beach cruiser bicycles warehoused and distributed out of the City of Industry, California.  The Greenline product line of beach cruiser bicycles stand out from the rest of the beach cruiser style bicycles because they are hand-painted bright colors by factory workers and left to air dry before being shipped either to your local bicycle store or directly to your front door.

Beach cruisers or beach bikes made their debut during the Great Depression when the sale of bicycles were sharply declining; however the Schwinn Bicycle Company had high hopes for the beach cruisers and as a vehicle of travel, the beach cruiser bicycles became very popular.  Paperboys and bicycle couriers love the fact that the beach cruisers worked well on flat terrain because of their fat balloon style tires.

The beach cruiser bicycles also featured upright seating posture, straightforward steel construction and single-speed mechanics – although today there are beach cruiser bicycles made with other speeds.  They are comfortable bicycles and that’s what draws baby boomers to them today; their comfortable style and retro look along with the fact that they are very trendy in all social circles.

Back then if an individual was shopping for beach cruisers, there was a lot of competition for Schwinn from companies like Columbia, Monark, Shelby, Roadmaster and Huffy.

To make their beach cruiser bicycles more alluring to younger children, many of these companies manufactured them to resemble other forms of transportation or popular characters at the time. There was a motorcycle, a Donald Duck bike which included a quacking horn, the Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy bicycles which featured a capgun holster and fringed saddlebags. Huffy’s version contained a large integrated AM radio that was also popular with girls.

Other bicycles being manufactured around the same time were the muscle bicycles with the banana seats and ape-hanger handlebars that are still seen on many motorcycles which were the inspiration for the bicycle handlebars. Plus, several years later, the new BMX bike was born for off-road cycling and tricks, mostly for younger and teenage boys.