Originally Posted by
ramt1960
Hope you took halfspeeds advice and checked out bigboxbikes.com and bought the genesis roadtech. People there are a bit more tolerant of WM bikes. From the limited time I've spent in here it seems the rote answer for questions if you're not buying LBS bikes is buy used or spend more money, usually without knowing anything about the bike or reading the original question.
People here generally know what they're talking about and rejecting their advice out of hand is probably a bad idea. The OP came here and asked the question, there's the response.
Every big box bike I've ever seen or worked on operates poorly and will fall apart very, very quickly. They are junk, pure and simple. You simply can't build something as complex as a bike for that kind of money with any sort of reasonable quality or baseline function. Trust me, do a few 15+ mile rides on a Walmart bike and you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll either get frustrated and give up cycling or end up wanting a better bike in a month or so. Regardless the money you've spent is wasted and you've "saved" nothing. This is why people recommend saving up a bit and buying something used with some quality up front. As already mentioned the difference in money isn't necessarily that great, even $300 is going to get something much better. This isn't snobbery or unfounded thinking, it's solid advice based on experience.