Originally Posted by
mike
I have a hard time poo-pooing department store bicycles. More miles are ridden on department store bicycles than higher-end bicycles; not only collectively, but indvidually. My first commuter was an old Huffy three-speed that I bought used and rode about 8,500 miles every year. It never broke down and I sold it after riding it for more than ten years.
I think that has more to do with volume than quality. McDonalds outsells practically everyone in food service, but that's not because their food is good. That's not to say you can't find decent bikes, just that a lot of the models are crap.
Perhaps even more than automobiles, the bicycle world has a strong elitist group that somehow feel superior by the bikes they own rather than the miles they ride.
This is absolutely true. When I was researching cargo bikes and more-or-less settled on the Mundo, I got some static on other forums bordering on "pfft, what a piece of junk", saying it's the equivalent of a $300 mountain bike, I'll be replacing all the parts in a year, and what the hell they're using high tensile steel for the frame, etc. Never mind that I'm pushing 2000 miles in less than a year on a $260 city/hybrid bike through all weather conditions and it's still going strong.