Originally Posted by
Burton
So if they were initially off on a hand built frame for a $14,000 bike - I wouldn't count on them being acceptable by default on anything mass produced with a much smaller price tag.
I'm not sure that's a valid comparison. Hand built frames are more likely to show dimensional variation than those built by modern machinery, no matter what the price. Obviously Wal-Mart bikes are machine built and the tolerances are likely to be pretty poor but any "big name" bike-shop quality volume builder probably does better on average than a small shop artisan.