Closure: Final Days of the Waterford Bicycle Factory opens with an intimate tour of the facility documenting the factory’s machines and textures during its final days of operation in the Spring of 2023. It then captures the process of dismantling the factory and following aftermath, documenting the facility stripped of machines and remaining patina and evidence.
Photographer and author Tucker Schwinn captures a distinct and intimate perspective of the industrial space through the lens of someone who grew up witnessing operations and working within its walls and who returned as an adult to work there until its last day. It is a layered story told through portraits of machines, process, and textures that only come from decades of use and wear at the hands of expert craftspeople. It chronicles the ending chapter of a family legacy with deep roots in Americana, Midwest manufacturing, and cycling history.Tucker Schwinn is a photographer and creative based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
After earning a BFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2010, Tucker worked for SRAM Corporation, a large US-based bicycle parts maker, until 2017. He then returned home to work alongside his father, Richard Schwinn, at Waterford Precision Cycles until the factory closed in 2023.
“The images are incredible, yes, but it’s the intimate, deeply personal, and detailed perspective of the writing that I find more compelling…
“It’s a beautiful and moving tribute, and I can’t recommend it enough.”
JAMES HUANG, n-1
“If you have a passion for hand-built bicycles and framebuilding, the tools they used, the processes they’ve developed and honed, as well as the personality of a well-used frame-building shop, this book should be on your coffee table.”
RON FRAZELLE, BIKERUMOR
Hardcover, Stitched
240 pages
12 x 1 x 8.6 inches
Limited Press, 2500 copies printed
Published by Wow What Studio, 2025
Edition: 1st
Language: English
ISBN-13: 979-8-9931896-0-4
