Department/sporting goods bikes, and vintage road/english bikes are the most common types of bicycles that get donated to the bike co-op here. I often give the dept. store bikes a small overhaul, as they are a popular pick with lower income people who just need something to ride on but don't want the dropped bars of the road bikes, and want more gearing than the english bikes.

There are really two distinct camps in these cheap bicycles. There's the ones which are of cheap construction but practical design, which can be made serviceable and affordable. They're fair practicality for the cost. The better ones are of simple design, and often include features to help out in day to day life.

I have found nothing at fault with the first camp.

And then there's the camp of cheap bicycles which attempt to imitate their far more expensive, far more sophisticated boutique brethren. Occasionally, we get donated some real nightmares - full suspension bikes with faulty, play ridden linkages, disk brakes with flimsy, poorly performing components, soft, poor metals being used in high stress applications (we have a pile of cheap forks with play in the stanchions and lowers that grows and grows).. I could go on.

Bicycles can be built reliable, cheap. And those bicycles can be put to good use, its just a matter of sorting out good use of a small budget to build a modest bike, from a flashy waste of metal.