Originally Posted by fender1
What are the chances that something relevant comes from this test? I mean to say that the bike will more than likely perform better than many people expect because they have a predetermined idea as to outcome based on price and the reality that most folks here would have already bailed on this bike due poor initial build and the amonut of maintinence needed to keep it road worthty on a daily basis.
Originally Posted by fender1
As for the ebay and craigslist stuff I find things all the time. I live outside philadelphia and there are plenty of nice bikes availble for $100-$200. It changes quickly and you have to act fast, but they are there, at least in my area. I looked at cig's CL the day of the orignal post and there was a nice Motobecane for $150 or so. I don't know if it is his size or not but it was there and available. As for ebay it takes more time but I have had completely different experinces on both CL & ebay than what the previous posters desribe. As for the performance of the Trek, I took it out of the box put it toghther and it has worked fine. No issues or less than the OP desribed he has done to bike in question hence my comparison. Not being an elitist just comparing my experince within the same price range.
I perdict that bike will perform fine as it is being maitained by someone who is skilled and detail oriented. My point as to the validity was that one camp has already decided the bike will fail. The other camp is more focused on cig's right to conduct the test and defendng it. My question is who here will be purchasing/ consider purchasing the bike based on the review? That to me is the valid point of the review.
Here's the thing, I've bought plenty of things off Ebay and Craigslist. Nearly all of them have been opportunity buys where I have plenty of time to deal with the hassle and aggravation of private party purchases over the internet. To buy over the internet you need to have a decent knowledge of what you're buying. You also need to be willing to deal with either an uninformed seller or completely incorrect information. As you, yourself pointed out (emphasis mine) you have no idea whether the bike will fit Cigtech. Even if the bike size is given, how do you know if it's correct? You may be able to pick out the $100 bike that's good from the one that's bad. I can tell you I'll have hard time doing so, and likely so will a lot of other people.
Also as you point out (emphasis mine again) you put your bike together. That presumes a certain level of skill. This level of skill isn't something that can be presumed by most of the buyers of a Walmart bike.
When I need something
now I go to REI or if I need something
soon I get it off an internet website. I pay a premium for that but I can afford it. To scale that down, if you need a bike
now and it will either see limited use or infrequent use then why not head to Walmart?
Why spend $20 on a Snap-On socket when you can go to Autozone and buy the same size socket for $3 if you're a shade-tree mechanic? You can make whatever arguments you want about the Snap-On socket being far superior and the Autozone no-name socket being not worth the money but you have to put that into a context of use.
A professional mechanic who is going to be both annoyed and losing time will go with the Snap-On socket. They'll come out and get you a replacement socket if you manage to bust it. You get to go to Autozone yourself and buy another one when you shatter the cheapo one. The tolerances of the cheapo socket will be far worse than for the Snap-On socket and you may end up stripping some nuts after frequent use. However, when I needed a particular socket to go change the brakes on my car I bought the $3 socket from Autozone because it's going to just see that one use and then sit at the bottom of my toolbox.
The same goes with a cheap Walmart bike for someone that either needs a bike now or just wants to get on something and ride. I think the review is
quite useful for the later person. Someone that goes to Walmart for a bike likely will not have the experience of Cigtech, nor the aptitude to repair the things he's fixed so far. Some people have no interest in learning how to fiddle with their bikes.
For them this review is useful since they'll realize that buying this bike could involve a lot of trips to the LBS for some repairs right off the bat. How does no one posting "I'm going to go buy this bike based on this review" invalidate the review? How many reviews have you read on the internet and simply closed the webpage after you obtained the information you needed? I've done so hundreds of times. The review will be here. Google will find it. The unfortunate buyers will have to sort through our extensive, tedious, and distracting argument in this thread to find the updates on the actual bike use.
Perhaps once the test is completed Cigtech can summarize all of his posts in a new thread so someone only has to read one post to get the entire review.