and if you're willing to get your hands dirty, there's usually some decent entry level on CL for less than 100. if you go cheap on the parts you could get a cable set, tires, tubes, bar wrap, a chain for... maybe 90 bucks or so. assuming you already have a tub of grease for the rest.... heres my cheepo basic bike. after owning it for a little over 3 years and hundreds of miles its probably cost me 220$ total so far, including the cost of the bike and another donor bike. thats pretty close to the cost of a walmart/ target bike.

This was my first road bike and i crashed it maybe 4 or 5 times, i doubt one of those department store bikes would survive that much abuse and still function properly.