Actually, this is a seriously lame aspect of C&V. "Everybody knows" that Huffy, Columbia, et. al. made crappy bikes, and Schwinn Varsinentals are boat anchors, and anything from China or x-mart will fall apart before you roll it down the driveway, by definition. This attitude has caused a rather contrarian reaction in me; I'm planning to restore just such an unworthy bike, then ride it in the company of much higher-class bikes, just to prove it works well enough.

There are two threads on this forum from last year that helped adjust my opinion on the importance of a brand name or technological superiority of a bike: this one, at http://mjgradziel.com/thelmajones/lu...eopenroad.html, which is the story of two young women who rode their bikes across the US in 1944; and the other is a more recent feature on the Mexican immigrants in LA who depend upon cheap bikes like Magna and Next as their main transportation to get to work daily ( I don't have that link handy).