dty

are they good value. They are 26 inch, front suspension, 21 speed mountain bikes i think.

AnthonyG

Those cheap bikes WITH suspension SCARE me!

I would think more of them if they DIDN'T have suspension. Just think of how cheap that fork has to be for the whole bike to be sold in Australia for $98.

I'd feel safer on a cheapy that was an all steel single speed.

Regards, Anthony

dty

I found the handlebars twisted out of alignment with the wheels. i tried to tighten it wiht alloy keys but each time they kept getting loose, i havent had the same trouble with a second hand all steel bike.

jrdn.wallace

Yeha i agree, thos el-cheapo bikes are better without suspension pretty much cause there's less to break

matty_da_one

If it's the Dunlop one, DO NOT BUY IT. I stupidly bought one (low on cash at the time), and so far I've had:

1 pedal snap while riding
Rust (whilst well maintained)
Very poor gears, slipping despite maintence
Squeaky brakes

Hasselhof

Yeah but mate, think of the character

clackerz

IMHO - U get what you pay for!
I would rather invest more money into a second-hand one or if a new one is really what you want then again invest a little more - buy from your LBS at least you will get proper assistance, knowledge etc and usually you the after-services as well.

garden_lark

****ters. money better spent on something second hand. have you felt the weight of those things?!! go trading post or ebay

pal

I got started on one of those given to me as a present. Pretty much started to fall apart after a few months of commuting, by which time I had already gotten the bike-building bug anyway.

stevegor

Great to use as boat anchors

PSF-peter

ive ridden those k mart bikes. they are Ok for very light riding. ride of a gutter and the rims will snap lol.

nah i reckon he best bits on em is the breaks. i love wheelies. woooo

ecki_34

those kmart bikes are DEFINATELY the worst thing in the world. so many of my non cycling friends have bought them not knowing the difference between that and a 'real bike'. i think the longest one of them lasted was two months.

the suspension is the worst part, it feels like the springs are about to break every time you go over a bump. everytime i see someone with one of them i can just imagine the suspension collapsing and the bike suddenly evolving into a rigid bike.

btw rigid framed bikes are much more relyable if you don't want to spend heaps on fancy suspension.

Brian

The shop I worked at in NSW refused to work on them. We simply could not get them to function adequately.

They are radical Muslim bikes - total shiite.

Nitram

My favourite bit about those mountain bikes is the little sticker that says:

Brian

Heck, my Haro BMX race bike says that.

Albert '55

"That" sticker was on a kmart bike & the name of the bike was "All Terrain"

HyperHorse

If you decide to buy one of those crappy bikes, you deserve something bad to happen to you.

matagi

That's a little harsh!

Although if you buy one of these bikes something bad will very likely happen to you.

Rowan

Probably the most intelligent post of the lot (the first sentence of matagi's excepted).

By the way, have a look next time you are in a real LBS at the cheaper "off-road" bikes on the floor. You will find that nifty little "not for off-road use" sticker on most of them. Likely those LBS bikes are built in the same factory as the department store ones, and likely they can give the same amount of trouble in things like suspension if ridden hard. The frames for these sorts of bikes probably cost around $10 to make, the parts aren't much more, so the profit margin is still there for the stores. Imagine what the LBS is making!!!

I've trained people (adults and kids) who have had these department store bikes, and it's usually been a case of finding out if they like the idea of cycling without spending wads of cash on something new they won't get their money back on anyway if they find cycling is not for them. Naturally, they have gone away from the courses with the ambition (and knowledge) to buy a bicycle that will endure and fit them. As for the kids, the majority treat their bikes like garbage and I can understand why parents wouldn't want to spend more. Plus kids are remarkably adaptable when things don't work.

I also can guarantee there are myriad more people worldwide riding department store bikes than LBS bikes because they are genuinely poor and don't have access to LBS prices or ebay or Trading Post. Their bikes squeak and squeal and probably don't change gear, and they use their feet to stop... but it's their transport, and it does what [i] they[i] want.

65vitesse

hi all,

i'm new here so i hope i won't upset everybody on my first post.

i bought my wife a $106 big w bike to see if she would take to riding. she could never keep up with my 30 year old steel frame roadie. i went right through the bike and every bearing was over tightened by heaps.
(except the bottom bracket that was loose as you like).
i put this down to chinease quality control.

a few month later i bought a mid range, brand name, road bike from a proper bike shop and guess what?
every bearing was over tightened.

so much for the pre-delivery check.

cheers for now,
derek

dty

Whats the deal with over tightening. I dont understand.

Odin

People don't understand the concept of preload.
The people putting them together in China probably know as much as the knobs that assemble them in the bike shops. Fark all!
It's a huge stretch to call any of them mechanics... they put pushbikes together... hardly rocket surgery.

Rowan

It's like machine-built wheels... anything mass-produced by machine won't be consistent in quality.

Bikes are delivered to big-box stores and bike shops in the same stages of assembly. Hub and headset bearings aren't even in the picture when it comes to pre-delivery checks -- unless they are so tight that nothing turns when the cursory final checks are made.

Brian

Incorrect. There is a wheel building machine that produces properly tensioned wheels that are better than hand assembled. But it's rather pricey.

Rowan

So, which companies use it? Just so we can be guaranteed that the big-box store or LBS marketing cheap bikes offer better-than-handbuilt wheels?

In the context of what we are talking about, these bikes use machine-built wheels which have loose spokes.