Originally Posted by webist
Don't buy a Daihatsu either. Wait until you can afford a Ferrari.
Don't rent an apartment either. Wait until you can afford a McMansion.
Instead of eating bologna, wait until you can afford caviar.
Don't play Fish or Spades or Hearts. Wait until you are a professional Poker player.
Why buy a 13 inch TV when you can save for a 62 inch flat plasma HDTV?
Why cook a meal? Wait until you can hire a chef!
X-marts sell hundreds of thousands of bikes every year. They are clearly satisfying a demand. That's the way the system works.
People buying a bike for a kid, which will likely be undersized, damaged or lost while the kid grows each year are probably right to buy an x-mart, or used bike. You ever try to talk quality and workmanship to a kid when you are competing with a Spiderman or Dora the Explorer logo?
I think in some ways the expression "To each their own" implies a certain amount of freedom and mutual respect.
Those are terrible analogies, and you're trying to make us all come off as wealthy, elitist snobs. What's really being said is, lay down the Big Mac, and spend a little more for something that's actually good for you. A good introductory model bike is not that much more than a Wal-Mart bike, is much better quality,weighs substantially less and will last many times as long. Also, for the same price as one of those turds, you can get a quality USED bike. There is nothing elitist about expecting a certain standard of quality in a vehicle that could potentially kill you if it's shoddily built. Those who still want to be obtuse can be obtuse, but I find it ironic that not one LBS employee, (the people who have to service these POS's,) will defend these bikes. It's always the people who are too cheap to buy their own kids something safe to ride around on. That sucks.