Windsor Fens. If I were buying again I would think seriously about a cross bike. The only serious complaint I have about the Fens is that you can't put anything bigger than 28s on the back, and even those are iffy. Big 28s would not fit. I put a 28 Gatorskin on and it is so tight to the brake stay that course sand would probably hit it. It's about a millimeter away. I'd like to be able to mount 32s if I really wanted to.

In a word, no.

I would never claim to ever have been an elite rider but I've always liked nice bikes.

In 1973 I was riding a full Campy Bottecchia Pro. No index shifting or clipless pedals (both of which I love) but a super high-quality machine that was a joy to ride...

I have a Wal*Mart bike (see Next Avalon bike under my username), but I had already read horror stories and watched warning videos about how terrible the quality was with them before intentionally forking over $10 for a year or so old used one with a busted rear gear shifter.

Quality is exactly as bad as you've ever heard it to be, from crap Chinese components to the shoddy assembly work. And as for the busted rear gear shifter, it's very telling that WalMart.com sells replacement rear gear shifters for about $15. Even at ten bucks I feel a bit jaded about buying this bike. I went over it thoroughly, made sure the rear shifter was in a fixed gear position, made adjustments, tightened bolts and fittings, inflated the tires, and oiled it. Two days later riding only on level terrain with less than two miles just ferrying myself back and forth between my Aunt's house next door and the handle bar suddenly became loose and then crooked, both tires leak air, and the breaks keep loosening up on their own accord. Worth noting the rear shifter is broken because it is partially made from plastic, and the plastic is broken.

You bought a used bike for $10 that you knew had broken components and had issues with it; who wudda thunk it!

New Rider here (I have been a runner for the last 2.5 years but decided to try cycling for some cross training): Since I am new to cycling and looking to just have fun I bought the Denali last week as I did not want to spend a fortune on something I wasn't sure I would stick with long term as I am on a budget with a baby on the way, mortgage, car payments etc and had to be a responsible adult (boo adulting). I brought it to the LBS and for 25 bucks they looked it over and even replaced a brake cable for me that was acting up. I have since discovered Strava (previously used Nike+ for running) and that has gotten the competitive juices flowing, I love the segments and all the other metrics it tracks. Anyways I put 40 miles on it since last Friday (10 Friday, 20 Sunday 10 Monday) and so far I have not found it to be that bad. Now will it hold up especially to a solidly built 195 lb man for long enough to feel like I got my money's worth...we shall see.

I already am looking forward to riding it into the ground and then telling the wife I must get a new "real" non department store bike.

I am curious to see what the difference in speeds/times will be once I make that upgrade. Currently I am riding it completely stock and having a blast.

If you move to a nicer bike, the speeds and travel times might not climb suddenly. I think the biggest differences it makes will be in reliability and enjoyment, but I can't even guarantee you'll enjoy it more. Ride yours a while and then test ride a nicer bike. You'll know if it's worth the money at the time.

I agree, sell it and get your money out of it to invest in something worth upgrading.

To answer your question specifically, there are lots of reasons.
I volunteer at a bike co-op, and see what these bikes look like after a year when people donate them to us.

I see plenty of people buy a pretty bike at a big box store, and then quit riding them as they get out of tune so quickly, and who wants to spend $50 to tune up a $200 bike? The bikes fall apart quickly enough that we get a steady supply of donor bikes of this type. Takes a lot of time and TLC to get a bike like this going again.

THey are heavy, break, rust, get out of tune. Upgrades are much more expensive than buying a complete bike.

If you have a good chromoly or aluminum frame, then you could try, but it is going to be very expensive to upgrade. The markup on parts is MUCH more than the markup on a complete bike. Besides, have you looked at the details? The welds? The dropouts? The base frame weight?

If you need a decent bike but need walmart prices, at least try bikesdirect.com. At least you'll have a decent frame (if you know how to fit it to you) and good components to start with.

If you are happy with your out of the box big box store bike, purchase a single speed, and just use it for casual riding around 10mph, a walmart type bike is fine.

I will say some of the gears rattle a bit but overall I am happy so far. I don't expect a perfect trouble free performance for $169 dollars. I will attempt to follow up in 50-100 mile increments and see how its holding up.

Take EVERYONE's advice here. I was about to buy a cheap-o mountain bike for commuting and fun. I posted two on here that sucked and was yelled at a lot. They were right though. I was in the 500 price range, but waited longer and saved more money. I got to the 750 price range and picked myself up a beautiful 2014 Trek Fuel Ex 5 29 that is in mint condition. I love the thing to death. My current house mate wanted a cheap bike for going to classes and such, he bought a 60 dollar used manga target brand buy and hates the living crap out of it. And I do too cause he keeps asking me to fix it lol.

The guys on this forum know their ****. I love them all.

As long as it's working fine and you enjoy riding it there's no reason to be in a rush to replace it. I see lots of people riding some pretty beat up bikes that clearly have some maintenance issues. Wobbly wheels, nasty squeaks, disconnected brakes and shifters, etc. Your bike is much better than those, even if they were decent bikes 30 years ago... and the folks riding them don't seem to mind too much.

I'd never recommend that somebody ride a bike in as bad of shape as some of those, - especially when it comes to brakes, but my point is that it's all relative and none of it matters as long as you're happy with your choice.

The only bikes I have that cost over $750 are tandems. Of the single bikes only one is over $500 and one of them was $30 from a garage sale. You can buy a lot of (new) bike for $500 and if it makes you happy that you waited. Fine. But please don't imagine that someone else is riding inferior merchandise because they got off at the $500 floor. Actually, $750 is far from the most money someone could spend on a road bike... far from it. And? What I wonder does the owner of a $3k Scott or Trek or Cannondale get from the transaction with respect to Commuting?! I saw some sad "Stolen: Carbon Scott Roadbike" pasted around town recently. So there is that. Everything is a trade-off.

Wow! That's of heck of a steal on a great bike. It my area that bike would easily go for twice that.

100 mile GMC Denali update:

So the bike hit the 100 mile mark today. Still riding quite well. So far the only issue was a rear brake cable had to be replaced and I upgraded to better quality brake pads.

Yesterday I tagged along with a 25 rider strong local bike club on a 30 miler and had no trouble whatsoever in keeping up with the group. I didn't try to keep up with the 3-5 guy fast group. But the overall speed of the group was easily maintained on this 30lb bike. I noticed on climbs I would actually pull ahead and on descents I barely had to pedal to keep up and if I did pedal hard I could pull away. If i had to find one fault with the bike it was the flats. I found that I had to pedal harder then the other riders for the same pace. The only conclusion I can make is the 32c treaded tires were causing a much higher rolling resistance. The average speed was around 17mph for the ride.

Ride it. Probably will be OK. Wal-Mart sells lots of bikes every day. I see people commuting to work on them. Look at instructional videos online on how to do adjustments and repairs, as needed. Parts and supplies can be bought inexpensively from Nashbar, Niagara Cycle Works and Bike Wagon. Some stuff you can grab at Wal-Mart. You can upgrade to a better bike later. Nashbar, Performance, Jenson USA, Bikes Direct, and sometimes a local bike shop will have great deals on slightly older model bikes. You may even find something nice and practically unused on Craigslist, or at a garage or rummage sale. You have something to ride, so you can be a little picky. The bike was spec's at a certain quality level, replacing stuff that isn't broken is not an efficient use of your money. Better to put that money into a sinking fund for the next bike.

That's a good write-up. You sound like a good athlete. Now it seems you might enjoy some nicer tires but nothing else for the time being. You can get some Panaracer Pasela tires for relatively little money, and they'll be nicer than whatever came on your bike.

I think someone passed me on a GMC Denali yesterday when I was out riding my Pinarello on the Springwater Corridor. I didn't get a good look at the bike. It was squeaking like crazy and had the kind of yellow, black and white paint scheme that a lot of Denalis have. It could have been anything I suppose, but I was guessing Denali. I'll note that I didn't catch up to it afterward, nor did I find a trail of pieces falling off. As someone once wrote, it's not about the bike.

I am a bit on the heavy side for a true cyclist (195lbs at 5'11'') but I'm athletic and muscularly built and have been very physically active for most of my life. In my late teens through mid 20's it was all about weightlifting and bulking up. Late 20's was when i settled down and got married and had a few off years when the weight creeped up to 220lbs so that was when I turned 30 a little over 2 years ago I decided I needed to get back in shape. Decided I wanted to focus on endurance and cardio as I have always had a naturally muscular build (mesomorph body type) I took up running and got down to the 190-195lb range and have been pretty much stuck there for awhile. Enter Cycling to mix it up, cross train etc and really fell in love with it. Should be less wear and tear on my body than just running alone and it trains different muscles which can only help our my running and hoping it jump-starts my body into losing the last 10lbs i would like to lose.

This was the ride from last night: 17.6mph over 12.2 mile distance. Max speed recorded was only 28mph downhill. I am wondering if that is a limitation of my phone's gps monitoring over short distances or an actual limitation of the gearing on the bike. I feel like i am going much faster than that. I am pedaling full out downhill to the point that i can't get any return out of the bike, I would estimate the cadence is about well over 100rpms (maybe 120ish) at that point.

I have no plans on upgrading anything anytime soon, but as things wear and tear or I get a little extra disposable income I might do a few things to it. I know I should just save up for a real bike but it will be a long time (have a baby on the way etc) so it will be easier to spend a bit to fix this one to keep it on the road then buying something new or even used from CL.

Current mileage on Denali-126.2 miles

+1

Gears not the gps most likely.

If it's like the one I had it's got a 48 tooth big ring and a 13 or 14 rear cog so that's about the speed you'd spin out at around 100 rpm. It's actually got a MTB drive train. If I recall correctly that's why I looked for a freewheel with a 12 or 11 tooth cog when it was time to replace it. Or it was when I upgraded the wheel to a freehub with 11-26 cassette.

Thanks, good info, I had seen some other posts that mentioned it utilized a MTB gearing ratio setup. That and tires will be on my upgrade plan. Seems like I am losing out on a lot of energy gain on the downhills and the subsequent inertia into flats and proceeding inclines.

It's more fun to go downhill more fast! I wouldn't count on a lot of inertial gains but you can surely improve on the gearing. You'll probably be sprinting at higher speeds than that on level ground.

When you change the tires be sure to have a look at the rim tape. If it's still that cheapo rubber, just replace it with some cloth rim tape.

Because of the drive train and the big tires you can put on it - at least 32, maybe bigger - I consider it to be more of a hybrid than strictly a road bike. Very versatile, one of the cool things about the bike.

Any advice on a good crankset/freewheel combination that mates well with the stock revo-shifters?

You're doing extremely well, and don't diss your own physique. You're lucky in some ways. You have a lot of brawn, and you're achieving speeds I can't dream of since I'm too scrawny. I'm 5'9" and weigh 153 lbs. I had a tough time riding into work today, as Hurricane Hermine -- or now, Tropical Storm Hermine -- was whipping its edges in my face. I faced some brutal headwinds on my 14 mile course. My average moving speed was only 12.6 mph, and that's about 1 mph slower than normal, as a result of much bigger effort than normal. You would have done much better than I did on this course, and I have many more years on the bike. Some things can't be improved much.

You're doing well enough that I think you don't need any upgrades. When you get a little cash and are ready, buy some tires. You'll be glad you did.

Thank you I appreciate the kind words, I am way more about competing against myself then others. Yes its nice to be able to keep up or pass other riders of hold off on someone else passing you but the true battle is against yourself. That is how I have always felt in all of my physical pursuits. Everyone has their own baseline, and peak potential, we don't all start out at the same spot or ascend to the same levels. Its much more satisfying in my opinion to see the improvement over time in others and in myself.

I live near Plymouth MA and man did we get some wind from Hermine on Monday! I went for a ride and was getting buffeted all over luckily the rain held off for the most part only had to deal with a quick downpour and light misty rain for the last few miles. I actually thought that felt nice haha.

Oh I agree, but you're well on your way to becoming the champion who beats ... you. I'm the same way. I'm enjoying my own struggles. We're both confronting our own, and it's a good thing.