Whoa, glad to hear my thread is doing some good! Good luck to those of you who own one or are about to own one. I don't think you'll be disappointed in it. I'm not, and I'm pretty particular about stuff.
To answer some questions:
stwebb:
The saddle I ended up getting is a Serfas Dual Density with E-Gel. It was 40 bucks at the local bike shop. Pretty satisfied with it overall, although my butt is still breaking in to it.
It sounds like you've got your essentials set! I'd recommend carrying two spare tubes and a patch kit just in case as well.
Can't help you with the Bell tubes as I don't have experience with them, I've just been using standard tubes. But 26" tubes won't fit on 700c wheels. Also make sure that your replacement tubes have Shrader valves, long or short valve doesn't matter.
Good luck with your bike and feel free to post your experiences/thoughts here!
TexasPedaler:
As Tundra_Man mentioned, the GMC Denali is actually manufactured by Kent Bicycles in China. But it does have the GM badge on the seatpost tube, which is neat since I am pro-GM.
I also shared your experience of finding this bike to be extremely easy to ride coming from a mountain bike.
Repairs will happen, chances are components will wear out somewhat faster on the Denali than on a more expensive road bike. But based on what I've seen so far that won't be for quite sometime in the future, and parts are very interchangeable with this bike. I'm up to about 250 miles now, the bike is still extremely solid and still no problems aside from the original problem with the bottom bracket popping which I am convinced was just a problem with my particular bike based on others I've seen. 20 bucks and a sealed bottom bracket fixed that.
Douga:
I'm almost positive the bike will last long enough for you with just minimal maintenance. Just keep things greased and you should be good to go.
On that note, I've decided to pop open the other things on this bike that require grease. You may remember I opened up the bottom bracket earlier and found the grease to be adequate. I'm waiting on the tools for the headset and wheels, but today I took apart the pedals just to see how they looked inside. Again, I found there to be adequate grease, and the bearings and races looked fine. Since everything was apart anyway, I cleaned everything and repacked with fresh grease. Seems pointless to go to all that trouble and not do that.
I'll probably have the wheels apart this Friday, and I'll report what I find inside. Those are probably the most important greased components on the bike.
About bike snobbery - I actually haven't experienced too much of it yet. In fact, most people I've encountered seemed to be very positive overall about it. However on the last group ride, I showed up and there was an older couple I hadn't seen before. While I was walking up I could see them staring at my bike...and I don't think it was very nicely.
The end result? I don't know if they were new, or just not in good shape, but I ended up passing them and staying near the front of the pack the entire time. When the ride was done, they were looking at me, not the bike.
That one incident aside, I haven't experienced much snobbery. I hang with the group, I have no mechanical problems, I can maneuver through tight fast turns with the rest of them, and for one reason or another that I still can't explain this bike is faster than the rest of the group while coasting downhill. Wal-Mart bike or not, if the bike can do that it will earn respect. It won't be winning the Tour de France anytime soon, but it's good enough for the average rider. And as I said earlier, I think it falls more under the category of a touring bike rather than a road/race bike.
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