Using this forum has allowed me to learn what is needed to service a bike... and hey this thread specificly helped me with this bike.

I'm no bike mechanic.

I don't see why it's crazy for someone to learn about the positives and negatives about this bike and decide for themselves if they want to buy it.

No one who has one seems to hide any little facts about it. No one has hidden the obvious adjustmenst that would need to be made and for a used bike you'd need to check everything out, lube most parts and so on... expecially a really old bike.

I think there's just a lot of bias out there. You don't need an LBS to tighten a bolt or determine your seat height. I learned a lot on these forums, sheldon whatever his name is's website, and other sites. And hey if you buy a used bike for $25.. or $50 or even $100... are you going to want to spend $65+ for an LBS to work on it anyway? Nah, that's part of being cheap in the first place. Buy something, fix it yourself, have a blast riding it

I now know enough thanks to the denali in what to look for in a second bike. I haven't had to re-adjust anything that I've adjusted so I'm not as fixated on parts as features. What I'd like is maybe a bike with some higher gears for speed. And if I had a 3rd bike... maybe a SS or a multi-speed bike converted to SS.

Of course I could eventually change up the gears on the denali... but I do like the lower gears for mountain climbing (talking 10% grading and maybe more!). Atleast, until I get strong enough to not need them.