madpogue 

Did you tell him the handlebar was upside down?

seedsbelize2

I have a 78 World on the downtube, Sports on the top tube(It was quite the project determining it to be a Giant built Schwinn) frameset hanging with a bent rear triangle. No idea how it happened. .I put many centuries on it before it got hung up, in favor of my new 87 Prelude.

dddd

Fork looks bent to my eye.

One downside to this vintage of Schwinns is often the presence of French hubs already damaged from over-tight axle bearing adjustment from the factory.
That to me is the sad part, and why I often offer less for any as-is 1980's Schwinn that turns up.

Bikes like this are also worth a whole lot less to me if the rear wheel rim isn't still in straight-running condition without any wild, localized spoke-tension anomalies.

SW84

I guess I'm the rare forum member (and probably soon to be hated). I bought a $170 mtb from a big box store, because that's all my budget would allow, and I'm restoring an '84 Schwinn World that looks almost identical to the one in the first post. BTW my mtb has several hundred miles on it with no issues related to it's construction what so ever.

e0richt

while that may be true for the majority, there are people that put miles on those "junky box store bikes".
Also if you have to restore an older bike, there could be issues with getting parts.... I was looking at a peugeot that was inexpensive
but based on the forum there are alot of incompatibilities with headset, bottom bracket, seat post and even handle bars...

probably a recipe for frustration and spending time scrounging for parts....

52telecaster

Nobody will hate you for buying a bike and riding it. Sounds like the ideal situation to me. Keep riding!

DonkeyShow

I love my $40 lotus. Had one big box mtb taking up space and just put it at the curb with free on it.

Cant believe people see them for anything but the trash they are. Heck some ppl are actually proud of their pos cause it has pointless shocks or something.

abdon 

I Hate crappy big box store bikes that go for stupid money. You on the other hand are a brother cyclist to me.

But this is illustrates my point, I paid about half of that for my hard tail mountain bike in pristine condition. Just the dia compe canti brakes and suntour shifters are worth more than that. Not only that but if I was to sell it for what I paid for it it would be more that what you would get for yours.

rustystrings61 

FWIW I am probably going to buy the ‘92 World Sport over in the next town for $45 - last year model with 7-speed Shimano Uniglide hubs on Weinmann 700C rims, Exage Motion 300 parts, the right length stem and width bars for me. I’ll probably replace the stem shifters with either bar end or maybe some MicroNEW brifters and have a chro-moly frame with a hi ten fork budget bike that will be fine for relatively casual rides.

That or harvest the fork and all the parts and build up the Cannondale ST400 frame I have kicking around here.

smd4

The problem is, many, if not most or all of the people who buy from the Big Box store simply have no idea how to look for a used bike, or what to look for. They don't know if a headset feels notched or loose; they don't know what's a good brand or isn't. They don't know where to look for cracks or other issues. They don't want to be bothered with replacing cables and housing. All they want to do is buy a bike that works, and going new--regardless of price, or being able to get a much higher quality used bike for way less--is the way they usually go.

abdon 

Which basically illustrates how people make bad decisions. Then them bikes made with the cheapest parts known to man would start squealing, and they find out that a tune-up (if they even bother to look it up as most just end up tossed aside) would cost them more than the bike is worth. This is bad because it sours people to cycling and it just adds more worthless junk in the world.