Originally Posted by
jefnvk
On second thought, and I know many here will deny it and refuse to accept it, if that price rangeis all you have to put into a bike, you may well just be better off going to whatever big box store you prefer and buying whatever is on sale. The $120 Schwinn road bike on clearance I looked at at Meijers the other day (local X-Mart chain type store) would have been better to get on and ride than most old $100 Schwinn road bike if there was no budget for work being done to it.
This is actually a really good idea. You will be getting crap components, but you aren't planning on riding centuries or racing, just riding around ... and you will be getting New components, i.e. everything should work, nothing should be bent or worn or need replacing.
We all dump on department-store bikes, but for someone who just wants to do what this guy wants, to ride around the neighborhood, a box-store bike should work fine. Particularly if the buyer is not bike-savvy, he could buy a decent $100 bike with a few fatal flaws which he wouldn't notice until after the purchase .... and even replacing just tires, tubes, and maybe cables could set him back half the purchase price.
If he got a box-store bike and went online to learn a thing or two about set-up, he should have a cheap, reliable basic-transportation bike that should last a few season (or more if he doesn't abuse it) while he slowly saves up for a real bike.
Good thinking,
jefnvk .