Originally Posted by
wahoonc
Therein lies the problem...they don't STAY adjusted and require a fair amount of time to keep maintained compared to a slightly better built bike. I have had many a WM bike go out of adjustment while it was still on the repair stand. They use the absolute cheapest components they can, screws strip, the springs are weak, etc, etc.
Aaron
When I regained interest in biking in my adult life, I decided to go down the department store route and bought a Schwinn Ranger 26" mountain bike from Target. I paid $139 for it and it was a great bike for the money. It was of good enough quality to get me back into riding again. After riding for months and racking up hundreds of miles on the bike, I realized I wanted a more efficient bike/faster, so I sold the bike on Craigslist for $75. The bike gave me absolutely no trouble what so ever. Except for when I attached a trailer to it and stripped out the bolt on the rear wheel....
It really depends on how you bike and what you have ridden before or currently own. I have saved myself probably thousands by NOT taking very high end bikes for test rides at my LBS.
One could argue that higher end bikes are a waste of money by the diminishing returns in performance/reliability.