Well, this experiment is done. I have decided to ship this bike back to Amazon. Yeah, I know you guys were warning me about the parts upgrade path and you were right. I'm OK with the thought of swapping out the v-brakes (which are stamped steel on this bike) for some aluminum parts, and the brake pads (which are utterly terrible on this bike), and I was OK with the thought of swapping out the cranks and chainring for something nicer and larger.
But I was not OK with the steering stem. The lower half of the riser has a plastic shim in it's ID at the top; and the upper half of the riser sleeves into this shim. The upper stem has a groove along its length top to bottom, and the plastic shim has a matching bit that aligns upper/lower halves. The problem is; the bit that aligns with the groove is plastic so any amount to torque applied to the handlebars will quickly wear this groove/notch and cause the handlebars to turn when they should not. Shoddy execution.
Also, the freewheel was making a sound that altogether wasn't right and I couldn't expect it to heal itself.
After summing up everything I was going to have to do to bring this bike up to my expectation, and adding the fact (as was pointed out by others earlier in this thread) that in the end it is a relatively heavy steel frame, I decided to throw in the towel before I made any mods to the bike and return it.
I know that I could have made this bike into something better by fixing the steering riser design flaw, but I had the sense to question "why"? I like a challenge, but I should have started with something a little better quality.
Lesson learned (I think)....
I have already purchased another cheap bike, but I did learn a little from this first one. The replacement bike is still not a name brand, but it is aluminum frame, 20" aluminum rims/hubs, all aluminum brake arms and levers, Jagwire cables, etc. So even though most of the bike is still not the highest grade parts, it appears to be a lot more bike than the Vilano for $50 more. I'll start a thread once I get the bike (next week).
2nd times a charm?