Yeah Fedex tracking says the box weighs 53 lbs (?!). Not the Huffy carbon fiber model. Real Steel. Should be pretty robust. I guess the good point is that after I get the thing moving, inertia will carry me for the rest of the ride. And if anybody "doors" me in the bike lane... I'll take that Mercedes door with me.

Thanks to (almost) all of you for useful answers. I much prefer the "pretty tight to really damn tight" scale to both Newton Meters and Pound Feet.

I'm actually going to try to balance a 20 lb weight on the horizontal wrench handle to see if it turns any more. Would this qualify as a "Mythbusters" experiment?

Regarding brakes and derailleurs it's fortunately a one-speed, pedal-backwards-to-brake deal. I actually wouldn't try to assemble a more complex bike myself. I'm going to visually inspect the wheels for truthiness and... just return it to Walmart if they're warped and wobbling. I am good enough with a wrench to probably not strip bolt threads. Loctite is sounding tempting for my more likely undertightening.

Regarding Harbor Freight Tools the customer reviews on their cheap "clicker" torque wrenches are scathing -- one from a guy saying he went through all the wrenches in stock at a store and none of them were working right. And in general I'm reading that "clicker" types need professional calibration (even after having been shipped) to be at all accurate. Not sure of the economics of that for a $20 wrench.

I'd go for the more reliable if less exact "beam/needle" type. There are very cheap ones to be found ($10) but only in 0-150 foot pound (½-inch). BUT, Sears has a new 3/8-inch 0-75 foot pound model (should be just OK for 6-35 pound foot range I guess?) coming out next month for $17.99 with free ship-to-store for anyone interested:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...9&blockType=G9


Well I'm out of here now. And on this bike not certain to live to post again. I know how hard it was for all of you to not "h8 on my Huffy", and appreciate your effort.