sonatageek

Anyone seen or tried this bike? It is $109.00 at Walmart, alloy frame and rims, 7 speed rear and single up front.

https://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...00000003260420

I ask, knowing that that bikes sold at 'Mart etc are crap, but I have a friend looking for a cheap around the neighborhood/trail rider. I already know that CL offers better deals -- yada yada -- Looking for something cheap and new that might be an alternative, as catching a deal in the right size that is not too far away on CL can sometimes be more trouble than it is worth.

Of course the Mongoose website doesn't even list such a model.

andrelam

The biggest problem with buying a bike at one of the large box retailers is that you pretty much have to assume that the bike is not put together right. Any time I've looked at one there are always glaring problems with assembly. These range from brakes that are installed backwards to basic adjustments that are so far off that the brakes won't work right. If you don't know anything about tuning up a bike expect to pay at leat $60 to a LBS to adjust things. The sub $150 bikes also come with realy low quality components. I've seen folks with major crank problems because they were not installed right. Others found that upon taking their bike appart for reassembly (because the didn't trust the 1st assembly) found many of the bearing surfaces to be completly devoid of any lubrication.

The bikes I've seen at Target that see for aroudn $180 are much higher quality and are about the same as the $250 bikes that you can get from a LBS. The same issue of bad initial assembly applies to these bikes. If you figure the cost of taking the bike to a LBS to have it adjusted, the cost savings are not there. After a few weeks of riding you should have the bike readjusted as the cables may stretch a little as they get some initial use, your local bike store will do this follow up tuneup for free. For some basic riding, a lower end bike from your LBS will work just fine. You don't have to drop $1000 to have some fun on a bike.

Unless you are mechnically inclined, and know what deficiencies you will have to put up with, I would generally avoid the sub $180 bikes. You'd be much better off finding a used brand name (Trek for instance) bike in your local paper or Craigslist for a lot less and have a bike that is of much higher quality.

Happy riding,
André

sonatageek

Well I have the mechanical ability to go over the bike (I have been learning and flipping bikes on CL over the past year) so I figure it would require the same amount of my time to check and adjust as anything we might come across on CL that is used. I am mostly trying to find someone who has actually tried/used one for a while.

I know all about the quality of the really cheap department store bikes -- Got a freebie Roadmaster that only netted a seat quick release bolt and a seat -- There was nothing else on the bike worth taking off and putting into the parts box. That was a pretty new one. When I have pulled old ones out of the trash, well still not great quality, but I could at least grad the diacompe brakes and few other bits.

Retem

I tend to ask for a bike from walmart still in box which they will gladly do for you and some times even with a slight discount "assembly charge"

I take the responsibility to assemble the bike myself because I trust I know more than the people that are working that department and could care less about my safety or their product

Podolak

Is it me or is this a "one size fits all" bike? I didn't see any sizing options on the site. Does it fit your intended target?

sunflowerflyer

If it gets him riding, it's perfect. However, personally I'd look around, often you can find a good quality used bike for about the same money.

masiman

I guess you are looking for the diamond in the rough? Yeah, I see plenty of those type of bikes around. Alot of the immigrant workers around here use them to get to work if they can not afford a car. They work well enough and are affordable to them. To them it is just a more efficient way to get where they are going because they can not afford to buy a car or pay for public transportation. So yes, it that sense it will work. Not worth repairing or upgrading in any way. You'd get more for your money on CL, yada, yada, yada. I am pretty much only confirming what you already know .

mihlbach

I was visiting my parents in IL last week and went with my dad to walmart. He needed a bike, for short distances around town with mom and for extremely mild fitness rides, and wasn't willing to spend more than Walmart prices. The Mongoose Paver looked about right. It has no suspension or other unneeded gadgets on it and the rear rack and single chainring up front with 7-speed in rear is simple and versatile enough. Clearly the biggest problem was the assembly. Everything was way overtightened, underlubed, and undertensioned. I overhauled the whole thing, including tensioning the spokes. It rides nice as long as you don't try to hammer on it. With proper assembly and maintenence its a good bike for $100...better than the fake mountain bikes with junk suspension that you mostly see.
The main problem is that most people buying cheap bikes like this don't understand bike mechanics, nor are they willing pay near the price of the bike for proper maintenence. Therefore, most wally world bikes will fail after a few miles. Its a sad waste really and not a good way to discover the pleasure of bicycles.

st0ut

I laove the one review. it works graeat as long as you dont pedel hard the pedels fall off. WOW.

Rodjs

THis bike jumped out at me when my wife and I were poking around for a bike for my 12 yr old son.
I had a Next mountain bike thats about 8 yrs old, for several years it sat in the weather unused.
Turns out, one day I decided to get it out of the weeds by the garage and try to ride with my son, well the chain was rusted solid and it had a flat.
One of my sons other bikes was a Rhino bought at Toys R US, it was crap and fell apart the first yr he had it, so I swiped the chain, bought a tube, oiled the cables, shifter, and bearings and was ready to go.
After the bike sat in the elements like it did, it still rode decent, till I decided to show my son a trick i could do well when I was a kid, well that turned out really bad as I turned the rear rim into a pretzle, (literally!) 280lb guys should not attempt a 180 bunny hop on old bike! it dont work!
Well I decided to get a double wall rim at a bike shop and keep the old thing going, after all the frame held up well to some thrashing at a local bike trail and about 100 miles of street riding, BUT I'm trying to be cheap theses days and the 100 bill for just a wheel and gear set to go a 8yr old walmart bike didn't seem to appealing.
So, as we were looking around wal mart that day I see this black and grey tall bike sittin there for just about the same price as that wheel, well, it came home with me. I really wanted a Giant Rincon XL, but since this is my first yr getting into serious riding, our bank account decided what I was getting, Always next yr!
So far the deralliuer allows the the chain to skip from 4th to 5th, (maybe an allignment issue I guess), as far as the pedals, yeah they're plastic, but my 275lb butt has not broke them yet, and I cranked up a couple of steep hills in our area, as well as commuted 25 mile round trip to work one day last week. So far so good!

bengreen79

Wow this thread is old but since it got bumped anyway, I'll weigh in on a Mongoose paver since I bought one at one time.

What I liked:
It got me into riding a bike again. The rack wasn't bad either.

What I didn't like:
1. Very poorly adjusted out of the box. Derailleur and the front brake were way off and the front wheel came bent (needed spoke adjustment). 3/4 brake pads were misaligned.
2. The gearing range is poor. I guess thats what you get with a 7 speed cruiser. It could really have used a bigger chain ring. I suppose their target demographic doesn't care too much about speed.
3. The gear shifter didn't hold enough tension on the cable to keep it in the low gears. A defective shifter I suppose but irritating nonetheless.
4. I don't know if it was the tires (though I never found any punctures) but I got 3 flats in a week during the first week of commuting (10 miles round trip, all paved).

After a couple of weeks, I got sick of the all of the various issues and replaced it with a Schwinn 2.6FS MTB (Pacific) that was only about $40 more. I have about 400 commuting miles on the new one with 0 flats or any other problems.

If I stick to this commuting gig, I will probably buy a better bike like a used Trek 7300 series next year.

Podolak

Here is a useful thread in the commuting section:

Mongoose Paver discussion.

Jerry in So IL

This is an old thread, but I have a little experiance with the Paver. We got one for my 14 year old Princess. She wanted it over the other bikes at Wally World and Target. What others said about the assembly is correct. We bought it in the box and spent $30 for the LBS to assemble it.

After three months and about 1000 miles, all is good. I switched out the sway backed handle bars for a straight set and end bars. The seat was swapped out for another. Also got road slicks for it. All in all, I put about $200 in it with the extra parts and water cage, trunk bag, and lights. Very pleased.

Jerry

sonatageek

Yes, I know posting to this thread is like giving a brain to a starving zombie, but...

There is a close-out company just outside of NYC that has Mongoose Paver bikes for $75. Local pick up and no shipping. For someone in that area, this could be a decent cheap commuter, especially given how much used bikes seem to sell for in the NYC area.

If anyone is interested do a search for Mongoose Paver on ebay.

bjjoondo 

Yep, sometimes, BUDGET takes presidence over all other considerations! Due to a financial meltdown, we lost our car, I had to have something to "GET FOOD" with as the local bus service SUCKS here So I bought a Wally-World Roadmaster Mnt. Sport SX for $70 and a kiddie trailer for $50. The first thing I did was take the POS DSB MTB to the LBS for a full Tune-up. This POS has done the job, it has hauled FOOD and larger items for several months now, it has also been converted to mainly a Path/Rail-Trail bike but it has given me "NO running problems" at all!! Sure it's HEAVY, (nickname is Triple-T, Three Ton Tessy) but all I do is constantly clean and re-lube and it WORKS, what else can you ask for, for so little money.

Jamis's bottom line MTB X-1 Trail is a "Ridged", steel frame/fork, steel wheels, etc. and it's still just over $300 dollars! So I'm still under that cost and I also have the "TRAILER". I don't expect my POS DSB MTB to keep up with your "sweet LBS" bicycle but IF your willing to spend a few bucks for the local LBS to set up the bicycle right, they will do the job required. Do I plan to stay with the Roadmaster, NO, I too would like a better bicycle, as soon as Uncle Sam sends our tax refund I'll be getting a Jamis Trail 2.0, which will still be "WAAAAAAAAY" below what most of you ride but will be "BIG TIME" for ME A bicycle doesn't have to cost $Thousands of dollars to be useful but it does need proper "set up and maint.", if you don't have that, it doesn't matter what you paid for it, it's going to fail. JMHO.

DieselDan

fail

bjjoondo 

Howdy DD, care to give out a bit more wisdom than a "single word", or are you saying that if a bicycle isn't expensive it's no good?? Kinda like a coworker I knew, she quoted "if a pair of shoes doesn't cost at least $50.00, there are just trash"

adaminlc

I would suggest looking around. You can almost always find an older bike (even 20 + years) that will last better than a big box bike. My first bike was a $300.00 bike from Wal-Mart, and though it was all sun-tour, shimano, etc parts it still fell apart in a year. Some things to look at include the hubs, the crank, the headset, stuff like that. Many of these parts are below bottom bin and wil wear out very quickly. You will probably to better to buy used, put a little work in it, and the kid will have a bike to last for years and require less work.

This plays into the budget idea as well. When I started riding again 3 years ago I quickly learned that a $10.00 part that lasts a year is much cheaper than a $5.00 part that lasts two months. I went through 3 Wally World pumps at around $20.00 apiece before I broke down and bought a $40.00 one at my LBS. It has lasted almost 2 years, much better than the months I was getting off the Wal-Mart stuff.

Theres only one reason to buy a Wal-Mart bike. 3 years ago my wife and I both wanted to start riding to school. I now ride almost everyday, commute to work by bike, and am doing 3000 + miles a year. I am on my second bike (now a good one) and love it. My wifes first bike sits on our porch, so rusted out that it may never move again. In that case, a Wal-Mart bike was the perfect choice. Why spend money on a bike she won't ride?

rhinobumpy

I got a mongoose paver for my bday at the end of June. Its a nice aluminum framed big tire bike with 700c wheels and 45 mm wide tires, sporting a 7 speed drivetrain, decent brakes, a rear rack, a water bottle cage and style, baby. The riding position is high and upright making for comfort on longer journeys with less fatigue on the lower back and shoulders. I agree with some of the posters that the assembly quality is not on par with a genuine bike shop bike, but my logic is this: the cycling industry has so many great aftermarket components available, I would rather pick and choose new items for my bike on a needed basis i.e. as things wear out or I see something really shiny for the bike that I cant live without. So far Ive only needed to do some minor adjustments to the brakes and shifter, nothing has broken. I did replace the handlebars with set of aluminum riser bars from the bike shop that have a more conventional feel, and a bigger seat. They make the bike even more fun to ride and look nice too. Overall, for around 130 bucks its a great deal.