Originally Posted by margoC

I think the problem with cigtechs comment on offering an inexpensive road bike is offering 2006 technology at 1975 prices. If they offered 1975 technology they could have a decent bike. Bicycle mechanics have to make a living too and after awhile you have to wonder when the labor of maintaining something costs more than the product, most consumers are not going to think it is worth it so you are still back to the origional quandry of trying to satisfy the low end customer. By the time you take the eco-road bike in for 4 or 5 tuneups you could have gotten a entry level road bike of decent quality. If you include the tune-ups as part of the package the bike mechanics will be spending all their time doing free work, the eco-road bikes will be a bike shop parasite.

The picture changes when you equip that eco-road bike with low maintainance friction shifters and stuff but that's so yesteryear.

I am fixin' to pick up my one road bike from the shop because I had a shifting problem I was unable to diagnose and fix. In the olden days I could maintain every aspect of my nice road bikes with a couple of spanner wrenches, a few cone wrenches, and a spoke wrench or two, and a freewheel tool (they called them freewheels back then and you could replace the individual cogs). I had not yet recieved my zinn maintainence book and the bicycle magazine maintainence book is only good to line bird cages with. I will find out soon what the problem was, I'm sure it was simple, but for the week I was tweaking it I cursed the existance of index shifters, and campanolo for that matter.

A lot of consumers do not need or want anything but an eco-bike, a lot of bicyclists would be satisfied with downtube friction shifters too.


What's my point? Wally mart (or bike shops) COULD sell inexpensive bikes, but to make them reliable they would have to be simple and for some reason nobody wants to do that.