Originally Posted by mrhogghead

Yeah, and I could have spent another $4K on my road bike and purchased the next tier bike. I sold another bike to purchase a ss and a child trailer. My budget for the bike is $350-$400. I want the 08Schwinn Madison. But it is out of my price range. As far as I can tell by specs. The only thing that I would consider qestionable are the wheels. Everything else seems solid. I am just looking for some real life feedback such as yours. It's going to get hammered on a rough 10 mile commute and pull a child trailer. If I want to ride a quality bike, I'll take the Tarmac out. I do appologise for the repost. However, there truely is a bunch of crap posted by people that have never ridden the bike. Maybe they are pissed that they spend $300-$400 more on essentualy the same bike? Or maybe they just want to one up the next person? We have all seen the guy that has little to no pow pow but, he has the nicest bike! I raced moutain bikes for 10 years before becoming a "roadie". I owned and raced several different bikes/manufactures over that period. But the bike that I loved the most and wished that I still had today was a $321 Skykomish that I purchased at Costco. Maybe it has sentimental value because it was my first moutain bike? I do not know? What I can tell you is the thing was bullet proof and handled like a dream. Of all the Canondales, Scotts, and GT's I had. The only bike that has ever come close to it's comfort and handling was my Schwinn Homegrown (made by Yeti). Point is, the frame is the heart of the bicycle. It's what gives the bike soul. Seats, bars, stems, hubs, wheels, will make it nice. But it wont make it sing. For a couple hundo more, I might get better goodies. But I'll bet in that price point the frames come from the same Taiwanese plant that the messenger does! Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I am going to buy the bike and love it!