Originally Posted by
njkayaker
Quite a few people have been conditioned to think that bicycles are something you buy at Walmart for $100.
Exactly. Then you tell them an "entry level" bike is ten times that amount. There is a market for those bikes between the entry level LBS bike and the Walmart bike and that's where the online vendors like bikesdirect make a killing. For some people a bike is a consumable product. The whole bike not just the tires, tubes, and brake pads.