man i guess there are pros and cons to cheap and expensive bikes...

paying for quality....my specialized allez '06 elite triple hasn't had ANY trouble yet over 400 miles (knock on wood)...shifts perfectly and runs smoothly....A BIGGGGG DIFFERENCE compared to wal-mart bikes and boy do I have a lot of them...as for my expensive bike...only maintenance i've done so far was clean and relubed chain once and buttload of cleaning to keep my bike shiny

on other hand my bargain wally-world mountain bike needed deraileur adjustments frequently. Instead of cable stretch, the problem was also due to the limit screws going out of whack for some reason. Like CigTech, i bought the bike because i needed it that instant. however, if i hadn't bought Sloth (the name of my beater wally-world bike) I would never have learned anything about fixing bikes. of course a cheap bike is gonna take more work to maintain but you learn a lot in the process. now I work in a bike shop fixing up wally-world bikes for homeless people lol

but hey if you're not that much into performance, a wally-world bike can last you just as long as any expensive bike as long as you keep it maintained properly........every week or so haha