Originally Posted by
JeffS
It's telling that after a "catastrophic" failure, the OP goes out in search of another "cheap" product to replace it with, never considering that cheap might be what got him here in the first place.
Your budget is your budget.
edit: Anyway, sure, I'm looking at entry level or just above that. But I'm sure we could both bring up a number of examples where a bike with cheap components is 500 and the upgraded components are 1500 or whatever, for the same frame. So price by itself shouldn't be an indicator of frame quality. I'm also not buying $150 department store bikes here.