cyccommute 

Most of the ones I've seen are relatively new bikes. Ground up bearings in bottom brackets are more common since people can pedal for a while with a wobble crank but they tend to notice a wobbly wheel more quickly.

The twisted off spindle I referred to above was on a brand new bike with only a few miles on it. The metal used for the spindle was of very poor quality. I suspect that's the reason for seeing ground up bearings in bottom brackets as well. Very poor quality metal is being used for bearings in inexpensive bicycles and they just don't stand up. Few of the bikes that I've seen with ground up bearings are "old" or abused bikes.

I would say that the only worthwhile Big Box Store bikes to look for are from about the 1970s. Sears, Montgomery Wards and even JC Penney's were importing some okay bikes around 1970 up to about 1980. In my experience, if they have a cottered crank, they are of decent quality. Once they switched over to Ashtabula cranks, they were on the downward slide.

Cottered cranks aren't a problem, by the way. They tend to use the same regular English threads and can be replaced with a cartridge bearing bottom bracket.

cyccommute 

I'm just pointing out that 400 miles over 3 years is a very low bar in terms of durability. It's the mileage that I would expect to be about the lifetime average of most Helmart bikes but a bike with 400 miles on it is a new bike, independent of where it's purchased.

jefnvk

Sure, but my 1978 Schwinn has garnered more nicks and scratches, and the stickers have worn far more, in the year and a half I've owned it than it did in the previous 36 or so years from the point I dropped $27 on it. Majority of bikes out there simply do not get ridden.

I'd truly be surprised if even looking at LBS bikes alone, half made it to 400 miles.

wphamilton

Maybe in your coopt you see more of the problematic ones. I still have my 2009 bike, commuted on it today in fact. Bearing balls were never a problem on it.

HTupolev

If properly adjusted, even crappy bearings will usually last for a reasonable duration. The problem is that bearings on cheapo stuff often come packed with way too little grease in addition to being extremely poorly adjusted.

wphamilton

That's pretty much what I was getting at, when saying that with minimal maintenance the cheap wheels can last. They usually could do with at least an approximate truing.

cyccommute 

Big difference. A 1978 Schwinn was not a Big Box Store bike. Up until about 2001, Schwinns were only sold through bicycle shops...many of them were "Schwinn" shops which sold only Schwinns. They were manufactured in US plants up until the mid80s. That may have been part of their problem as a brand. As a kid, I could never afford a Schwinn because they were higher quality and more expensive than other bikes. They also failed to keep up with mountain bike technology during the 90s which also buried them.

After 2001, the Schwinn name was sold to Pacific and they became Big Box Store bikes sold as a bit better quality than Pacifics other brands. Their other bikes are of such poor quality that being "better" than really bad is a pretty low bar to clear.

cyccommute 

From what I've been seeing for a while now, grease isn't the problem. The metal that the bearings are made of is the problem. Honestly, after seeing the twisted off bottom bracket, I question the overall soundness of even the frame.

unterhausen

in the '70s, a Schwinn Varsity really suffered in comparison to the imports. That was their choice sticking with their old designs. It's not like their production costs were really that much higher, they just didn't see why they had to change. When they did change, it was too late. A late '70s Varsity cost somewhere on the order of $700 in today's dollars. My back still twinges when I think about working on Varsitys, our storage area in the bike shop meant we had to lift the bikes about 2' off the ground. The bearings were good though. That bike had so many problems from a marketing standpoint it's difficult to enumerate all of them. The big ones were weight, worst derailleurs available, and it looked a lot like a department store bike. Some people really loved their Varsitys though, I have to respect that.

I wouldn't let my kids ride a Denali, at least not without replacing $300 worth of parts. The last new Varsity I saw was a pretty good bike, not a dead end at all. Granted, all low-end bikes are going to wear parts out under heavy usage, but I think that bike is good enough that replacing parts is worth it. The bikes you can get for $70 aren't worth messing with unless the replacement parts are virtually free and you can do your own work. But life is too short for that sort of thing on a crummy bike.

MRT2

Someone, maybe OP needs to take on that responsibility. In my family, I am the one who maintains the bikes, or barring that, takes them into the bike shop for repairs.

MRT2

None taken.

MRT2

Except that OP is saying this bike will be shared by 5 people and get ridden 20 miles a day, or 140 miles per week, or 500 plus miles month.

MRT2

Extremely low miles. Even years where I was off the bike doing other things, I might still put a couple of hundred miles on the bike.

EnjoyinTheRide

The op is using the bike as part of a trip and it involves lava rock lol. Ultimately I suggested they each buy a bike themselves from walmart rather than one expensive bike from the lbs.

MRT2

I had a mid 70s (maybe '76 I think) era yellow Schwinn Varsity. It was built like a tank. Weighed a ton. Was surprisingly reliable. Finally outgrew it around 1980 or so and gifted it to my younger brother who rode it for another 3 or 4 years. That said, if I were looking for a used bike today, I would look for something a bit lighter.

Gresp15C

I had a Varsity too, as a teenager in the late 70s. I put a lot of miles on it, and it never had any problems. I even took it off road. That was before everybody had a mountain bike, so if we wanted to ride on trails in the woods, we took our regular street bikes. I didn't like the soft steel rims -- they got bent fairly easily, and had to be banged back into shape, which I got pretty good at. I basically didn't know anything better until I got a lightweight bike with aluminum rims.

I used to repair a lot of cheap old bikes for friends. My rule of thumb was that if the components were legitimate, a bike could be kept in good working order if you paid attention to lubrication and adjustment. I never found an old department store bike that couldn't be whipped back into working order. What made the nicer bikes nicer in terms of maintenance was that they tended to have smoother threads and mating surfaces, which made it a lot easier to get all of the adjustments -- such as bearing cones and brakes -- just right. For that reason, if someone were interested in buying a bike and doing their own maintenance as a beginner, I'd recommend starting with a nicer bike.

What I'm hearing from @cyccommute is that things have gone down hill a lot, which makes me sad.

I don't have the Varsity any more, but I'll bet that if I could bring it up to my preferred standards (alloy rims and a nice old Bendix coaster hub), it would probably last forever.

gpsblake

We get this argument once a month.

I took my Walmart bike from SC to TX in 2005 and from FL to TX in 2016. Some Flat tires and one loose screw are the only problems I have had during either of those trips equaling around 3,400 miles in total.

If you know can turn a wrench and don't mind maintenance yourself and don't want to fit in to the bicycling road nazi groups, they work great.

gpsblake

Agree. Just walk into any LBS shop. REPAIRING LBS bikes is how they make their real money and you see plenty of LBS bicycles being repaired.

jefnvk

That was my point though, they were LBS bikes, and I have one example out of many that was ridden sparsely and stuck in a garage for the next 30 years of its life. It is not just a phenomenon for big box bikes, bikes are often something bought with good intentions that never materialize.

EnjoyinTheRide

I would imagine (other than the road cyclists) that most bikes do not get used to those levels of mileage yearly. Thats probably one of those market studies they did decades ago that indicate a bike for common folk shouldnt be expensive....cause they wont use them or even abuse them x amount per year....If one needs to be a hardcore go then to your lbs, normal common human these bikes are fine...

The OP is going on a trip with buddies thru lava rock lol. Why would they pitch in and buy an expensive bike, to share, with people who have limited experience, on lava rock for a one time trip, when they can each go to walmart, get a bike that they like, use it independently,have fun with it independently and I am very confident that all the bikes would be used well into the future. They can easily be repaired and you dont need the extreme partisan, professionalism, dedicated to the cause people in the LBS for this deal...

And lets be honest...In my area anyway the LBS's have been reduced to the niche called "the road cyclist". Yes indeed the LBS should thank the road nazi's for their existence today....They (LBS) have little to do with the overall bike market other than serve the expensive hobby of the "road cyclist". Lol You cant get in your zone lol or hold that line lol unless you spent that money and deal with them lol..sorry my opinion only lol...

Heck im in the process of getting a better bike and the more I research it online the more I realize I dont need my lbs....sad but true....Free shipping, 85% assembled(Keep in mind that 85% is the same for the LBS brands so your paying a professional for 15% assembly)...Bikes are easy to fix and fun to learn....

So lets put an end to this lol...Hardcore! go the the LBS, they need you, you need them. You both will not survive without one another...Hey normal human beings who need a fun bike. Walmart, Sears, Kmart, pennys , dicks clothing, and all the rest have them available for your general pleasure lol..

Ohhh lol and today is black Friday, check your LBS for deals lol...very limited I am sure....lol

MRT2

I would say in my area, that isn't true. At least one shop that catered almost exclusively to hard core roadies went out of business. There is one boutique high end roadie shop in my area, but that is the exception. The other shops fall into two main categories.

1. The one stop shopping bike chain. Located mostly in the suburbs. There are two chains that compete head to head. Wheel and Sprocket and Erik's. These shops sell everything, and are stocked with almost complete lines of product from either Trek or Specialized. And they also carry a full line of accessories and clothing as well. While you can get a high end roadie or full suspension mountain bike, if you take a close look at the stock, they sell far more $400 to $800 bikes than they do $4,000 or $5,000 high end bikes.

2. Urban bike shops and smaller neighborhood bike shops. These shops carry much smaller stock of products and focus on the needs of urban cyclists and commuters. These shops try to focus more on local niches, like custom builds, overhauls of older bikes, or even fat bikes. And you won't find a full inventory of clothing and accessories, which is fine by me as I won't spend full retail on bike clothing anyway. The bikes these places stock again are not the super expensive roadies but rather, single speeds, hybrids and drop bar bikes with clearance for wider tires.

wphamilton

Except that my Denali was getting those levels of mileage yearly, which you're calling hardcore, so not necessarily.

Cyccocommute has it backwards, big box store bikes have been getting better over the years. That's generalizing worse than he is though. I should say: Not ALL of them are better, otherwise he wouldn't see so many busted bikes at his coopt. In fact you might spot only one in the whole store inventory, or have to order one, but it's still a fact. If it were not so, how could I and many others ride a big box bike for 10,000-20,000 miles without having any of these problems that everyone talks about?

But I'm with everyone else saying I wouldn't go for the big store cheap MTB for OP's purpose. I'd be tempted to get two of whatever though, and for sure keep it inexpensive.

EnjoyinTheRide

See now in my area, your local #1 shop is our main LBS. They have been around for decades and thats where you went back in the day. But ive been going there recently to see what they have available and its mostly all road bikes, one or two expensive cruisers, a few kids bikes...lots of accessories for sure..But its clear you can see their direction with the road cyclists....I mean they have nice bikes there for sure.


The #2 smaller ones we have in the outskirts serve the local areas. They seem to be heavy repair on all brands but not much more. They seem to sell refurbished used bikes...


Maybe its my area. We do have a ton of box stores lol...we have always been a test market city for decades....

EnjoyinTheRide

Yea the mountain bikes are kind of misleading. I would go on a yearly mtb meet at Kingdom Trails in Vermont. Those Mountain bikes at Walmart with the shocks and gears and cables and break systems would not last one run around here....

Etiquette signs


Black Diamond Trail (the easy part lol)

Gresp15C

The answer could be: Variability. It's a widely accepted principle of modern industrial quality control, that you improve quality by controlling variability. When you hear that some people have good results, and others have bad results, it's a sign of a quality control issue.

In terms of contemporary manufacturing, it can be influenced by the way that products are sourced. You buy bikes from a supplier, but you don't know who that supplier is getting parts from, and it can change from day to day, especially under cost and delivery pressure. And products often go straight to the retailer without passing through any kind of distribution chain, so the supplier doesn't even know what's happening with quality until they get a whole bunch of returns.

This isn't necessarily a problem that's limited to bikes. It's the cost of low price.