patgoral

I NEVER go into Wally World anymore but last night I stopped in to get some batteries, and I though "Hell, lets take a look at the bike section I'm sure it will be worth a laugh!" So I walk over there and see several of these https://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=4698938 Literally EVERY SINGLE ONE, had loose handlebars, loose pedals, UPSIDE DOWN handlebars, backwards forks, etc. How does walmart NOT get sued?

dunningrb

Are you serious? Upside down handlebars?

Treker

I too browse the bike department when I'm in the big box stores.

In fact, I was in one last Friday, accompanyng a colleague who was interested in getting a bike so he could commute the 15km or so into work. After looking at their bikes and not being too impressed, and with his budget being about $CDN 350 max, I suggested a nearby lbs to look at the Giant Cypress base model or its Trek equivalent for all the reasons many of us know already: lbs service, fit, quality etc.

This morning he told me that he looked at the cypress but thought it too bulky. He bought instead what I'll call a pseudo-roadbike for $150 that some of you may be familiar with: the grip shifters are immediately on either side of the stem. At 30km a day, it should be okay... but he's already suggested to me that he may be leaning too far forward...

KungPaoSchwinn

A buyer in Wallyworld with some common knowledge will ask to make sure the components are tight ,or the store will get a bike from the stock room which is still inside a box,then you take it home for assembly,just need to be a thinking person to buy these type of products, can't always blame on Wallyworld.

I-Like-To-Bike

What LBS are you affiliated with?

tjwarren

This. Growing up, every bike I had that wasn't bought used came from K-mart, or Sears, or some other department store. EVERY ONE of them was brought home in a box, and I put it together. The ones put together are the floor models.

It actually never occurred to me, until I joined this board, that someone would buy the bike all put together.

mackerel

Perhaps you should buy one of those bikes, ride it, and have a "fall". Then you could sue them. Walmart most likely would settle out of court. With your newly acquired sack of loot, you could buy a really nice bike at your favorite LBS.

And you would ride happily ever after

KungPaoSchwinn

I can not survive without Wallyworld because that's the only big store in my town that sells everyday items i need.

Beccaree

I love my walmart bike. 1,000 plus miles and no problems. The brake line wasn't attached when I bought it but my boyfriend fixed it for me when we got home. I think people are complete idiots to take a bike out and ride it without doing a safety check no matter where you bought it.

Unknown Cyclist

Should I be grateful or sad that we don't have walmart here ?

KungPaoSchwinn

I have no beef with anyone rides or buys a bike from Wallyworld,my previous bike was a Schwinn Skyliner Hybrid,it served me well and i knew it wasn't " THE '' bike i want,just needed one to get my blood back in shape b4 i laid down more cash on a Trek, Wallyworld is my place.

ChiTownCyclist

I guess the WalMart in my area has someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to bike assembly. I've never seen a pair of upside down handlebars, and although I don't make a habit out of it, when I do "poke & prod," I've never come across any loose parts. If I would ever buy a bike from WalMart, I'd like to think that having worked in an LBS part time as a teenager for a couple of summers many years back, I'd know a little something about bike assembly and could 'fix' anything that might be wrong with their assembly.

( Kind of off-topic, but why do so many people slam WalMart? In these poor economic times when money can be tight, you get more for your money at WalMart than at many other places. )

Chris_W

I took a look at the description of the road bike linked to by the OP. The highlight was certainly this:
"Aero 36-spoke alloy wheels with radial laced front"
I'd never seen an aero wheel with 36 spokes, or a radially-laced wheel with that many spokes, so I took a look at the enlarged picture. Unsurprisingly, there doesn't appear to be anything aero or radial about either wheel. However, just saying "36-spoke alloy wheels" doesn't sound quite so fancy, so I guess the advertising guy threw in some impressive-sounding lies to juice it up a bit. However, there wasn't much they could do to spruce-up this line:
"Weight: 32 lbs."
(That's 14.5 kg for us metric people!)

I-Like-To-Bike

Very much on topic. My guess is that more often than not, when the criticism is over heated rhetoric about terrible quality or assembly, the poster's own economics are associated with employment at an LBS and Walmart is his LBS' biggest competitor.

madcow_number_6

@ ChiTownCyclist


walmartwatch.com

stapfam

Not that I was going to buy online- but a proviso at the bottom of the page on bikes at one online store states that all the bikes are 90% assembled and that they advise you to take the Bike to an LBS for final assembly.

We have a local chainstore that is possibly a grade above wally mart- and a couple of my neighbours bought bikes from them. One of them I told to take back as I could not assemble the bike as I would like to have it assembled. Gear cable runs were wrong and with "Gripshifters"- the gears would not change cleanly or easily. The other one assembled fine- but I did require most of my bike toolkit to get it running right.

But these were sold as complete bikes assembled at the shop.

And I have just started to service the kids bikes in the road ready for the summer. The ones sold by a Bike shop just needed oiling and adjusting- The Chain store ones needed lots of work done on them. Cheap cables Corroded into the outers- Rear derailler not covering full movement of the gears and Tubes going porous are just the faults on the first chain store bike. I still have another two of them to sort.

joe_5700

I looked a this bike first hand at Walmart once and picked it up and was shocked at how heavy it was. My Trek hybrid felt a few pounds lighter than the Varsity. Unbelievable. The tires were also completely flat.

Siu Blue Wind

^^^

Is it me or is even the handlebar of the bike in the (pic in the link) pointing up skyward?

gpsblake

These trolls come on here every month or so about Walmart and all the urban myths like "backwards forks" "upside down handlebars, "left pedal put on the right side" blah, blah. And the Walmart haters fall right for it.

Suckers.

Walmart has done more advance mom-n-pop stores then you think. You do realize that most of the businesses that go up around a Walmart are mom-n-pop stores? That Chinese food place, that's a mom-n-pop store.. Subway sub shop, mom-n-pop owned, and I can go on an on.....

degnaw

Walmart sure leeches off mom-n-pop stores. After all, thousands of Walmarts around the country go up next to such stores. Clearly, mom-n-pop stores are helping and encouraging the development of Walmarts.

BarracksSi

That's why we, collectively speaking, can't trust big box stores.

Never underestimate the idiocy of people...

wahoonc

BULL****! Walmart has done more to single handedly destroy manufacturing and small retail business in this country than any other business. They are a leech on social services, they screw municipalities and counties out of infrastructure costs and taxes and do little to support the local economy. I can cite you numerous examples of how WM IS NOT a good neighbor.

Aaron

madcow_number_6

go wahoonc!


also see https://www.walmartmovie.com/

watch it free and streaming at https://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=105


Down with low prices! Give me a quality product and customer service that entails more than "it's on aisle 12 dude". I'll happily pay more for it.

Siu Blue Wind

You are absolutely right. But because I have to maintain an even keel here on the forums (plus I was warned a couple of years ago) I could not express my heart felt reasonings here. Thank you. Seriously.

Bionicycle

Wal*Mart really should be more careful for their own sake when they advertise bikes... Maybe they are not aware of their reputation for not putting bikes together right. Example... https://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=4990074 Expand the picture and zoom into the rear wheel... you can clearly see the brake lever for the coaster brake pointing backwards, and not attached to the bikes frame.

It's not a bad bike: the wife and I own a couple of them from two years ago before Wal*Mart had them put the little fenders on and lowered the quality of some of the components like the handle bars and stem, and seat, and... but that is food for another thread...