Hey cig, great thread man. I've been reading it after stumbling on it yesterday trying to find out some info on the quality of the seat on my denali road bike.

Glad to see I wasn't the only one to take the leap of faith. For me it was about getting a road bike for riding my local paved bike trail (24 miles one way currently) called the Chief Ladiga Trail for burning calories as I lose weight. My LBS doesn't have any inexpensive road bikes (sub $700), my local craigs list and so on ... I have no clue about ... but without knowing a thing about what to avoid in a used bike I figured getting either this bike or the Shwinn Varsity (199@walmart) was for me.

I got mine about a month ago. I'm using it for mountain road climbing near my house (850+/- foot climb in 2.4 miles... a pretty serious climb), plus the bike trail.

Here's a pic from near the top of the mountain:


So I'm not on it daily for commuting, but I'd at some point like to try and find a good path to work that keeps me off the really busy streets. It's only 17miles each way, and i know i can do the distance.

Top speed for me?

You may think I'm out of my mind, and I probably was, but...

53.1mph


This was going down the mountain road by my house and despite a few key turns much of it is pretty straight.

Finding this thread has been great help. I've taken a lot of the tips and thoughs and created a little text file to read through as I get my bike properly dialed in and do maintenance on it. My LBS also charges a lot for servicing anything not bought there. So if I just use them from time to time for parts, it should work out good.

As for my average speeds on it? I've progressed some in these last few weeks. My first big ride on it was 34 miles and took 2.5 hours for an average speed around 13.4~13.6mph. Yesterday a co-worker friend and I rode 30 miles on the trail and my average speed was 15.4 mph. So I'm getting stronger though i realized yesterday just how low the seat is and how wrong it's setup. So i haven't been using my leg muscles too efficiently.

Anyway this has been a great bike thus far. I haven't had a flat yet so I don't know about the rim tape. I have been keeping the tires inflated to 80psi... but i'm thinking I'll try 90 or 100 after reading views here.

Thanks for the thread. It's interesting to see how it's viewed amongst more serious cyclist. I was told on another forum I'd be laughed out of any bicyling club if I intended to join using this bike... personally that's not my goal, though my co-worker friend is in the local club and he was pretty impress by the bike, my average speed on our ride yesterday (I'm still a beginner, I weigh about 15 pounds more than this guy and my denali weighs a lot more than his cannondale road bike).

Here's one more pic... this is the view downhill where I ride on the road near my house that winds it's way up the mountain:


The Denai handled the high speed very well. My second run is where i hit 53.1mph... previous to that I just had gotten over 40mph on it, but I really let lose one time just to see what the bike could do.

Well worth the $150+8% sales tax locally. What a great entry level way into road bikes