treal512

Please don't buy your bicycle from Wal-Mart. I'll gladly buy my little cousins one from there, but not for anyone who is older and not for anyone who is really looking to ride often or commute. I'd say an new entry level bike that will grow with your needs and last a while will run roughly $300-450. However, if you're not looking to spend that kind of money (1 car payment?), Craigslist is your next best bet. And if you're patient enough or not in a rush, Craigslist is better than buying new, IMO. Find your frame size, find the style of bike you want, set your max price, and search for bicycles $50-100 higher than that price and be ready to bargain. Good luck!

e0richt

on ebay a seller named "chicabike" sells bikes direct type of bikes and you can get a new bike for less than the coop and that would include shipping... its certainly better than a wally world bike.

roashru

i havnt stopped by the place yet but are like bikesdirect type bicycles from florida
i did contact them before about cyclocross and trekking bicycles they are mainly road

https://www.roadbikeoutlet.com/
.

blackhawknj

I would definitely try Craigslist. Just bought a nice Schwinn Superior-togo with my first one-off of Craigslist.My personal experience with used bikes is that they usually have been rode very little, at most they need new tubes and tires, maybe a cableor two, at worst a new chain.

Duane Behrens

Until you can spend at least $1000 on an aluminum road bike with quality components - a bike that will be a joy to ride and which will last you for years with minimal maintenance - well, I just don't believe there IS any other option. Time spent on a quality road bike always reminds me of a magic carpet ride; smooth, fast . . . and absolutely silent. Bikes such as these will feed your passion - not kill it.

Aluminum is good. Well made steel is comparable (with a softer ride) but increasingly hard to find in high quality. Titanium (Lite Speed) is better. And carbon . . . carbon is like butter. :-) I picked up my wife's new carbon Roubaix as a year-end model, for $1500. The deals are out there. Good luck.

WestPablo

If your budget will allow you to purchase from Performance rather than an Xmart, then by all means buy from Performance. However, I would strongly suggest that you go to REI, Dick's Sporting Goods, Sports Authority, and as many local bike shops as possible, before you finally order from Performance. Test ride as many bikes as you can. Try both road bikes (curved handlebars) and hybrids (straight handlebars). Hybrids generally cost less than road bikes. Therefore, I'd suggest that you order a nice hybrid from Performance as your first bike, unless you can well afford a decent road bike.

Avoid buying used, unless you really know bikes. Buying used can be either a certain financial bonanza or a real crap shoot.

Good Luck!

Notgrownup

I bought a Admiral schwinn for my wife and it rides well. I had to do some adjustments but it's not a total pos. I also bought a genesis hybryd to flip and it was ok but not as solid as admiral imho....look at the local pawn shops for a used trek or giant oron crCraigslist. ?. You will likely find a good deal. Just make sure you get the right size.

cplager

O.k. That's just silly. While I agree that Walmart would never be my first (or second, or third) choice, you don't need to spend $1000 to be well off. You can get decent road bikes for about half that (less if you catch a good sale), and if you are looking more for a cruiser, you can go even lower.

ItsJustMe

I bought a road bike from Bikes Direct this year, and it's great. I will be buying my bikes from them in the future if they have what I need. I saved about $700 over what the same thing would have cost me locally and it's not given me a second's trouble.

The second bike I bought this year I bought locally because BD didn't have anything close to what I wanted.

ItsJustMe

You're just being silly. I rode a $300 hybrid for 8 years and 30,000 miles and I enjoyed it all. That bike is retired now, a lot of its components were about worn out all at once. And I do now have a road bike and I like riding it best, but I also have another upright bike very similar to the hybrid. Telling people that anything but a $1000+ road bike isn't worth owning is just ridiculous.

My advice is to spend no more than $300 on a first bike. If you're still riding it frequently and you think you might enjoy and can afford a nicer bike, THEN look at upgrading. A new rider doesn't really know what they want or need. A rider who has been riding a $200 hybrid for a year on the real roads in their area will have a much sharper idea of what they want and what their local conditions allow.

Notgrownup

I bought a leftover 2012 cannondale quick 5 for $500 & a CAAD8 for $625

acidfast7

rebel1916

Literally the worst advice I have ever seen on BF. Think about that for a minute.
To the OP, I would avoid Walmart if at all possible. CL, and Bikes Direct both have their good points. Don't let people panic you about buying online. If you are reasonable proportionate, you can buy online with nothing more than a phone call to the vendor to confirm sizing.

PartsMan

This is the bike you need to be looking for. You can get a decent hybrid at a bike shop for $300-400 that will be a nice backup someday when you get a road bike. My LBS had a Globe with a scratch for dirt cheap the other day.

RaleighSport

OP: If you can go a bit further north to San Rafael I highly recommend getting over to the Re-cyclery they're a good charity organization and have great prices since their inventory is donated, they also run sales fairly frequently. (For the record I have no affiliation what so ever with them).

rekmeyata

Walmart bikes on their more expensive models aren't all that bad, but they're not designed for regular commuting where the miles will pile on...however on line they do sell expensive bikes online just not in the store; so in the store.

I agree with the Bikes Direct recommendation UNLESS you can get a smashing good deal from an LBS on last years model of some bike. Bikes Direct does have a Windsor Wellington 3.0 on sale for $400 but I've heard issues with weld quality control, it will last longer than a store bought Walmart but at some point it to will start having issues. Bikes Direct also has a Schwinn Le Tour Sport that has a classy look to it for about $600, and a Motobecane Gran Premo Comp for $800 which comes with the highly reliable Shimano 105 derailleurs and shifters/brake levers, either of those two bikes would be superior to the Windsor.

If your going to be commuting a lot then I would not buy a Walmart in store bike unless this is just going to be a once in a blue moon commute. You need to spend at least $600 to get decent reliability, and then make sure you take the bike into an LBS once a year to have it gone through so you have very little surprises from breakdowns while commuting. Also you'll want to invest in some good flat resistant tires because the new tires that come with new bikes are cheap, and then invest in a pair of Panaracer FlatAway liners for the rear tires since the rear gets most of the flats and takes longer to repair on the side of the road. Also, learn how to fix flat tires so you can almost do it in your sleep!

https://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...remio_xiii.htm

https://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...r_sport_xi.htm

https://www.bikesdirect.com/products/...ington3_IX.htm

Leisesturm

This needs to be said way more often and maybe louder too. In a place like SF the co-op's and Craigslisters see you coming. They are ready for you, and you cannot win. Unless you have the intestinal fortitude to turn and walk away after having invested an hour in traveling to some out of the way part of town to look at the "amazing deal" that popped up on your last visit to the CL website. That said, with a little looking one can find something suitable for regular commuting for ~$150 at a local co-op. It can be done. A newish rider absolutely needs the warranty and after sale support that comes from purchasing from a brick and mortar entity like an independent or franchise bike store or non-profit cooperative. Leave Craigslist to the trained professionals.

H

Ramona_W

I second what Sasquatch said. It's gonna be slower than just going to a store and buying a bike, but if I were you I'd grab your husband's friend who bikes a lot and start looking at/test riding bikes from Craigslist. If he's been at this a while he and some online research can tell you which bikes are worth checking out further.

You *can* get decent bikes at Walmart or any of the big box stores. After you buy one though, be sure to take it to the co-op or another trusted bike mechanic, pay for an hour of shop time, and get it a thorough going over/tune-up. Sometimes even a potentially good bike has been put together by someone from the shoe department and you want to start out safe.

gregjones

The owner of the closest bike shop to me says that he and the owners of several regional bike shops get together for lunch every so often. He said that they are all in agreement that probably 50-75% of the bikes they sell get ridden fewer than a dozen times and sit in a garage until the owner gets tired of them being in the way and sell them.

I bought a 5 year old Trek hybrid of of CL last summer for $200. It the owner said she had paid $718 for it at a bike shop and rode it four times, it showed no wear---the whiskers were still in the middle of the tires. They were moving and didn't want to bother with it. Her husbands bike was the same, it was just too big for me.

Ramona_W

+1

RPK79

If you buy a decent used bike for $2-400 you can likely resell that same bike for the same amount down the line. It's a fairly safe investment. If you buy a Walmart bike it will be worth little to nothing in resale value.

Leisesturm

Ok. I'm going to tell my Wal-Mart story. The issue as I see it, is that Wal-Mart's reputation comes more from the reaction people have to their business practices, and not to any real negative experience with actual Wal-Mart products. Most of you telling the o.p. to stay away from Wally World bikes have never owned one! I have. Two actually. Of the same bike. More on that later.

In 2005 I was living in NYC. I was commuting daily on a folding bike bought new at a fancy NYC LBS. I met a blind woman and quickly realized that we needed a tandem. I couldn't touch the prices being asked for tandems at LBS's or on Craigs. Pretty much every department store and low buck online bike retailer has a cheap, cheap, cheap tandem for people to use for one summer and throw away. Including Wal-Mart. To my eyes the Wal-Mart offering had the best line-up of features and looks. I'd never been in a Wal-Mart before that day! Target is my dept. store of choice. We bought the Kent Dual-Drive tandem that they had on the floor and rode it to her place. Secaucus, NJ to Hoboken, NJ. Our first ride together.

The tandem was too big to fit in her 600sf apt. so it lived in the courtyard. We rode it everywhere. We took it on the PATH trains. We took it on the NYC subway. We bought a Bob Yak trailer and used the Kent to grocery shop. And then we split up and she went back to England. I gave the Kent to a friend. The story doesn't end there but I will fast forward over the 18 months of long distance calls and e-mails. The story picks up again when 'J' returns to the states and we decide to leave the east coast and move to bike country U.S.A. I forgot to mention that we also had a high quality tandem that we intended to do club rides and such on but never did. I had held on to that bike all the time we were separated. We put it and my folder in a 16' Penske along with our other possessions and drove across the country to Portland, OR. I got on the Wal-Mart website and ordered a new Kent Dual-Drive and asked that it be shipped to the Wal-Mart on 82nd in Portland. I assembled it myself after we picked it up. Note to o.p. If you buy a bike from Wal-Mart. Buy it in the box. Assemble it yourself or get a friend to do it.

Its been five years with the new Dual-drive. We got the axle nuts for it so we can tow the Bob Yak with it. We are car free in Portland as well. Every morning I ride 'J' to the Max station and ride back alone. I ride the tandem solo as much as we ride it together. "Hey you're missing somebody... .." Trader Joe's is 8 miles away and we hit them every two weeks with the Kent. We changed the steel seatposts and seats for aluminum posts and Bontrager saddles. I changed the wheels after the original cluster wore out. We how have cartridge bearing wheels and bottom brackets. If you call Kent International you get a real bicycle company that makes a wide variety of products. Schwinn also makes some models that are only sold in department stores. If you bought one in Wal-Mart it would be backed by Schwinn Chicago.

Wal-Mart, Target, Fred Meyer, Dick's Sporting Goods, Sports Authority... ... they are all department stores. Wal-Mart is no better or worse than any of them. Wal-Mart has earned an especially intense loathing from the general public. But not all the general public. Many people love Wal-Mart. I bought the Kent from Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart is the only retailer selling them. I would buy one again in a New York minute.

H

Leisesturm

What you mean is you can try to sell a used bike for what you paid for it. The vast majority of bikes being sold are being sold by the surviving spouses at garage sales or through co-ops. How many people plan to sell something after they have used it X years? Why is the re-sale value of a bicycle important? It isn't. Bicycles are a terrible investment. So are cars. Art, jewelry... now you're talking. Buy a bike because you like it, not because you think you can convince someone to pay you what you paid for it after you've used it for X years.

H

acidfast7

or buy a cheap bike new like me and minimise the depreciation

Astrozombie

Maybe you can find a Schwinn, that's all I would trust, but you can find something similar at BD and even Performance for not too much more and they say the quality is way better.
I had a Denali once, the freewheel would stop turning the wheel and it did feel cheap (plus changing gear on the flats gets annoying)

I once saw a Trek Hybrid at a LBS for $250