Originally Posted by qcpmsame

The BSO that are sold as bicycles now are just reasons to quit riding bicycles to me. I know it sounds like the old curmudgeon guy now, but my first "real 10-speed" bicycle was a Sears branded Puch in 1971, it was gas pipe and had the notorious Simplex Delrin plastic derailleurs but it held up, shifted well after I got a lesson on setting the system up from the owner of one of our LBS. I got it delivered, as Sears catalogs were for back then, and assembled it myself with the manual they included. I rode that bike all day, every day for a year when I got the money for a Bottecchia. Now these BSO are cheaply built and poorly designed. The stores don't have "salesmen" they have a clerk that wants to get his/her shift over with.


If they are all a person can get I understand that, and I'll spend as many hours as needed to help them get the bike safe, at least. To me the current bike offerings are sad. Maybe it is just me and growing old.

Bill