Originally Posted by RubenZ
While I agree wal-mart bikes suck, sometimes its all parents can afford and I dont care about you all, but when I was growing up a quality bike was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted a bike to go ride around with the local neighborhood kids. And I loved my parents for working hard and getting me a bike. I was of the up bringing that if its free and I didnt have it before, LOVE IT.
Now that I work and I'm graduating from college I'm able to buy what I want...
The I'd rather walk comments are really interesting. I can name more than 5 situations where you'd gladly jump on a wal-mart bike given certain cituations
Up until recently, I had THREE bikes in my life. The first one was a Big Wheel.
The second was a huffy, with banana seat that lasted me quite a long time. As a kid, I'm sure I wasn't capable of exerting the type of force required to tear the cranks off and the weight to taco wheels. Coaster brakes, no problem. Everybody thought they were cool be you would always "skid out" when you hit them.
The longevity of the bike was probably assisted by the fact that my father assembled it in a 3-4 hours of meticulously crawling over directions instead of a flunky who has to put together 6-8 bikes in an hour.
My THIRD bike was a hand me down Schwinn Traveler. I lament having abandoned it at school. Though the bike was too small for me, it truly was a classic.
Dept store bikes are probably good for kids who are going to either wreck their bikes or simply abandon them in the garage like so many toys and games that they've outgrown. A kid who sticks to it can probably then seek solace at the LBS who will be happy to sell them all the BMX bling they like.
In the end, all those kids end up abandoning those well built BMX bikes as well, but at least they have a bit of resale value.
Adult sized people have no business buying ANY kind of department store bike. The sole exception may be Iron Horse which puts out an OK bike.