The frame with the forks weighs 8 1/2 pounds. Without the forks and headset that frame weighs 4 pounds. The front forks and the one-piece headset are made of steel. Also the handlebars and seatpost are made of steel. So they weigh quite a bit. The wheel hubs are also made of steel and weigh about two pounds of peace.

wow.....30 pages,

726 post, most of which have been very, entertaining.

To the posters who kept busting cigs balls, about no one finding this thread usefull... you people couldn't be more wrong.

I am a newbie who just found this forum.... I came to BF looking for information on how to pick the right bike for myself.

I have been wanting an inexpensive road bike to purchase....
but to my surprise( not being a cyclist yet), all of the local sporting good stores carried nothing but mtb's...
clerk told me that everyone buys mtb nowadays.... that if i wanted to get into a road bike I had to go to a LBS....
So I did... I was in the mist of experienceing the sticker shock($700 and up ) for road bikes, when the dealer told me that he could give me one of last yr model on clearence for around $425... better, but still much higher than what I "wanted" to spend.
Now some of you hardcore guys may think me just cheep, but you would be mistaken....

You see, I am trying to avoid repeating the past mistake of making a substantial purchase, only to see it sitting around un used, or having to sell it at a loss, because I find that I really just don't enjoy said activity as much as I thought I would.

A few years back I went out and purchased a 2003 Haro Mira 540 from a LBS which I intended to use for flatland tricking.... bike cost me $389.
I have ridden it a hand full of times , but mostly it hangs in my garage, or my kid uses it (but she perfers her cheep mtb over the Haro).

So anyway... Im looking for an affordable road bike, because i believe that if I get an enexpensive bike, if I find that I dont care for road cycling, no big loss.

Im at walmart with the wife the other day, when what do I see...
a brand new road racing bike, right at my price point(sub $200), and it even looks cool and high tech , to my novice eye.

Still $150 bucks is a lot of doe to blow on something that turns out to be a pos, so rather than buy right away I decieded to research the Denali... to see if i could find some good reviews, weather positive or (more helpful) negitive.

I end up here at BF reading this thread for hours on end.....

So to the people that asked who will read this and decied to buy this bike....
I will... a 36 yr old skilled tradesman( industrial electrician) from Det MI.
Why will I you ask?... because it fits my needs/level of experience/& expectations perfectally.
1. I want to ride right now... I can go to ww at 7:00am this morning and be riding my bike in an hour.(that's including the time needed for a basic saftey inspection, and a simple adjustment of the brakes).

2.I am a newb, so I dont have enough knowledge about road bikes(yet) to make a well informed decision on used equipment, not to mention the time and effort that it would take to find good stuff....

If I like cycling enough, I will take my time and find nice used/older equipment , while still being able to enjoy/train all summer on the Danali....

after a few months of researsh here, and a few months of riding/maintaing my cheep bike, I should have enough knowledge to know exactally what i want, how much I should pay for it... and I will have a great network of people in the community to help me with any problems that arise....


I hope that I have presented a sound opinion of a person for whom this thread has been very benifical...
Thank you CIG Tech.


( I have been doing this all night, but at least my walmart opens in 4 hours, so that i can go and get my bike.)

Enjoy.

BTW, what kind of WalMart is near you that can't sell a bike 24/7? Must be a throwback to the days of old Sam.

Road Racer, if you do get the Denali make sure you adjust the brakes and replace the rim tape. The narrow rubber rim tape will move to one side of the rim. Which will let the tube e expand into the rim. Then blow out the inner tube.

I replaced the rim tape with some Zefal adheive cloth rim tape. $5.99 at the LBS. I really like this rim tape. It's strong and will stay in place.

cool, Road racer, let us know how you like it. I think this thread is great also.

Here is a photo of my Denali set up as my commuter bike. I just installed the Tri bars today. They where $35.00 at the LBS. I also bought a Zefal Dually mini-air pump today. Nice pump by the way. You can see in the photo the that the grips on the Brake levers are all riped up. They are made of a soft rubber and just started ripping. But I have the Shimano RSX shifters comming any day now. Also see how the Tri bars get in the way of the stock shifters. Any ways here is the photo.

one in uptight suburbia...
Canton township dosn't like 24 hour stores in their town...
thay say it permotes crime, and brings in out of towners..... blah blah blah

cigtech, how may miles do you have on that bike by now?


Road racer, your thinking is way along the same lines as mine. Everyone kept telling me to spend $400 on a new MTB that I want. I didnt even know what I wanted. I didnt, I went and spent $60 on a used MTB. About 3 weeks later I started wanting more speed in my ride, so I though that maybe I would like a road bike better. I went and got a POS road bike for $60. In the mean time I am learning some about bike repair (on bikes that its not a costly mistake if I mess something up) . Total investment - $120. I now am in the process of deciding what type of bike I like best and THEN I will go spend the $400+ that type of bike.

Point is, even if you decide that you dont like road bikes. Atleast you only spent $150 instead of $400.

I have 4283.7 miles on the Denali so far.

See I went and got a MTB $399.00. But it was taking me 1 1/2 hours to get to work on it. Which gave me an average speed of 11.6 mph. It was too heavy and the shocks stole too much of my energy. So I went looking for a road bike. I found a 1989 Peugeot PB-14 for $10. Which was a really good deal since the Peugeot sold for $1999 in 1989. Then I could make it to work, 17.5 miles, in 52 minutes. On the Peugeot I had an average speed of 20.2 mph. That's a big difference on average speeds between the mountain bike and a good road bike. On the Denali I have a average speed of 20 to 22 mph.

And thanks for the Support Guy's. I knew I was going to take a lot a flack for this review.

ok, I am doing the math. I hope it is correct.......

$150 for the bike
+ $10.50 for florida sales tax=
$160.50

4283.7 miles/$160.50 = $0.0375/mi

I would say that even if you took that bike and threw it in the dumpster right now, you got your moneys worth out of it.

Maybe if I wasnt 5'6" and didnt always see the Denali in BIG frames, I would probably get one.

get one from amazon. tax free and free shipping. 19" gold color

Just out of curiosity after reading this entire thread, I went by the nearby WalMart supercenter to see if they had one in stock that I could look at. Most of the bikes on the rack in the store were MTBs. No sign of a Denali, and I didn't want to ask since I probably wasn't going to buy.

But this is proof that there are decent bikes out there for the rest of us. I've only had one LBS bike. It's my Schwinn that I've had for 18 years. It's great, but getting something like that now would break the $700 mark. Even if I had that kind of money, I'm a cheap bas***d and wouldn't part with it unless someone could convince me that the value was there. The LBS could make sure the bike was fitted, but I've been around them long enough that I feel like I can do that too. I know how to adjust the brakes and shifters as well. Some people would rather not be bothered with that, but I see it as a chance to learn a bit about what it takes to keep the bike on the road by myself.

They're available on amazon, but limited to 57cm in blue and 48cm in gold. I'd rather have the blue one in the next size up.

All this talk about thrift store bikes has me jealous. I might finish out the afternoon with some thrift store shopping, but don't ever recall seeing anything like that in the local stores. Out craigslist is pretty slim pickings as well.

-Bill

this is not entirely true, there is a red one that is an XL version (not sure what size but easily checked on amazon do a search for "gmc road bike").

there is also an "Envoy" that is part of this line as well as a "Yukon" that has sora sti shifters...

The denali is the first bike I've purchased in about 6 years. Before then I bought a next for 63 bucks form shopco or some such. And before then I was a kid with a walmart ten speed. Have to say biking to work on this thing has been great. I only do 10 miles a day or so, 5 days a week but it's a blast. I can't afford a 700 dollar bike and I don't want to mess with used stuff so glad I didn't get hosed. The bike works, for better or worse I pedal and the bike goes forward. See you all on the roads.

Has anybody found any tubes that work with this bike? Do regular tubes definately work with valve extension? Or a presta/schraeder collar w/ a presta valved tube? I wanna pick up some spares.

P.S. Yes the rim tape blows. Everyone do yourself a favor and replace it. I blew out both my tires yesterday from crappy rim tape. It was one of those never got around to it things.

Brake. Bless my heart, he finally used the correct spelling.

Never said I'm a word smith...

Yes you can use a vale extension. I got some at the Auto parts store. there work but I don't like the way they leak air when pumping the up.

The GMC Envoy is $220 at Amazon w/free shipping (at least for pime members). It has alloy wheels, aluminum seatpost, double butted tubes and weighs 26 lbs. The Denali XL is similar for $199.

Cig, just wondering, how is the crankset on that bike? I know a guy around here (New Brunswick, NJ) who says his keeps clicking. Have you had any issues with that?

Also, great review! I had thought that by now, that bike would have disintegrated. You certainly proved me wrong! Glad to see you got well more than your money's worth out of it. Almost makes me jealous...

I ended up switching to Presta Valve tubes with Presta/Schrader Collars. If you want to buy original tubes...

Tubes? Who needs stinkin' tubes. Anyways. If anyone needs to buy tubes for their GMC Denali here is the contact at Kent Bikes to call.
Lana - (973) 434-8180 ext. 200

I had a strange thought...this happens to me all the time, especially when I fail to put on my copper hat to keep the alien signals out. Anywho; you say your a mechanic? Then why after 16 years of being a mechanic and being around brakes and doing brake jobs and ordering brake parts, why would you spell the word brake as break? Just wondering.

Now you've gone and done it, he's gonna get caught in a infinite loop trying to type break and brake in the same sentence and wonder if he used the correct spelling for the given meaning.

hey cig,

I was wondering if you could summarize what is stock on the bike and what you have replaced.

I have dyslexia so I do not type. I use Dragon Naturally Speaking and sometimes it does not know the difference between words. So sometimes if I said ice cream and does not know if I say ice cream or I scream.

My Denali does not have a clicking sound coming from the cranks. But it sounds like he needs to check his bairings in his bottom bracket. Or see if one of the Cranks is loose or has play in it.

My Denali is still all stock. I have ordered Shimano RSX shifters and RSX rear deraileur. They should be here in a week or so. I'm also looking at Shimano RSX crankset with 50x42x30 chainrings. To give me a better top speed.

I've done it two years ago