The Mart I went to had the Medium and Large sizes in drop and flat bars, and maybe a Small drop bar. I was most interested in the flat bar. I had to cut a zip tie to get the large one off the rack, and both of the bikes I looked at would have needed some adjustments before they would be rideable, but that was expected. I found a pump the next aisle over so I could at least inflate the tires to something close to normal. The Large was just a little too big. No crotch breathing room between myself and the top tube with the tires inflated and me standing flat footed. Medium might work, but seemed right on the verge of being too small. I'm confident that I can make any adjustments myself, so that's not an issue, and I have to hand it to Walmart for making an effort with these bikes. I find the flat bar one especially appealing, and even though it's not perfect, there's a great deal to like with it. Maybe I'm too cheap for my own good, but I don't really want to pay full price for this. Someone on the marketplace has a Medium for sale, but it's a 1.5 hour drive, and that seems like too much effort. They haven't showed up used closer to home.

I added these Diety Deftrap platform pedals with dog point set screws for grip. Much larger than stock pedals. They grip my hiking shoe soles well.

I haven't been off pavement. Bike handles nicely. At 5'9" with 32" inseam. G1 medium seat post is 6" exposed out of seat tube. Maybe not ideal extension. But, I'm enjoying my ride.

After just a few days. Only the sometimes noisy front derailleur bothers me. Even the large chain ring to smallest rear gear can make noise.
Will I end up with a front derailier upgrade? Will see.

The person who had the medium framed G.1 for sale a little over an hour away dropped his price down to $100, so I decided to go get it. He said he was selling it because he couldn't get the RD to shift correctly. Made me think it could have been bent, but I wouldn't know 'til I got there. I arrived at the destination and the bike looked ok. The seller was a younger guy in his mid 20s who bought it with good intentions, hoping to be more active, get in shape, lose some weight etc, but even with the help of youtube videos, he was unable to make the needed adjustments to the bike. He didn't seem dumb, and not everyone is good at mechanical stuff.

Once I had it home and on the stand, I refreshed my memory online for RD adjustments and got it where it will shift correctly up on the stand. It was then that I noticed the front wheel seemed very wobbly. The quick release was set too loose, and then I noticed the fork was part of the wobble as well. There's a bolt hidden under a plastic plug at the top of the headset, so I tightened it to be not too tight and not too loose, but the wobble vanished. Like other people on some other threads about this bike, I believe the cups and cones on the wheels may be adjusted too tight, but I misplaced my second 17mm wrench, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Next came adjusting the brakes. They both needed some TLC. I've not done much work on bicycle disc brakes, so this was new. I got them to where they're no longer dragging and feel like it's a reasonable pull of the levers to get them working. But a test ride will be needed to know this for sure. Tomorrow will also be the time to adjust the saddle and seat post. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can go for a real ride.

This is a decent bike. I'm looking forward to having a ride. But it wasn't that way fresh from the store. It needed adjustments that were beyond the original buyer's skills, so he bought it with good intentions and ended up unable to make it useful. Kind of makes me wonder how many other people may have also had that problem. I'm a little surprised that more of them haven't shown up for sale on the marketplace locally.

Second time in my life stripping an aluminum frame down to its bare metal; the last time was an 1980s Cannondale with drop bar shifters. This time, it's the OzarkTrail G.1 Explorer. I've got a box full of old and new parts waiting to be put on.

Making progress

did you use oven cleaner? What are your plans for paint? Polish it out and have it anodized.

My g1 has been my trainer bike for a while now. The cassette and chain have anbout 1200(400 outside and 800 indoors) miles on them and at this point and are history. I need to refit it with stuff from the parts bin. If I break the chain again or it starts slipping I will have no choice.

Looks like you used the weakest paint strip in this history of paint strip products.
Best of luck reapplying a bunch more and still sanding.

I'm thinking of polishing it but need to research how to maintain a shiny finish.

I'm working in a cold, unheated basement that apparently affects the rate of reaction. I'm in no rush - when I need a break, I head down and apply another coat.

Now I'm thinking of NOT polishing.

send pics to an anodizer and ask what they would charge to polish it. With proper bench polisher it would take 30 min. You may be shocked. You
could have that anodized in a splash or all kinds of finishes at this point. Or just a nice single color. Look up anodizing on paintball markers for ideas.

you could use some "wet and dry" to give a satin/ dull finish. I prefer some "fine-ish" sand paper with WD40.

Next step is to drop the frame off at the local bike shop to install a new headset, including an external lower cup for the tapered steerer of the new carbon fork. But just throwing the new rear wheel and right crankarm to see how it looks.

Not sure why you stripped it, I guess you didn't like the color.

High polish is nice, but a good amount of work. You might "vapor blast" it, i.e., very fine sandblasting, then anodize it to a matte color. I've used sodium hydroxide oven cleaner on a nice piece of anodized cookware (found at Goodwill) that had been run through the dishwasher too many times, looked like a Holstein cow, to nice and even, but that etches the aluminum and I don't know the result structurally. On a pot, I had no concern.

Before and after:

What is the end goal for this entry level outdated frame?
Just a way to putz around and keep busy during the winter? Cool, if so.

John, if work hasn't started on reassembling the bike, maybe weigh the frame or ask the bike shop to weigh it. I'm probably not the only person who has wondered about the frame's weight. Walmart's bottom-feeder aluminum bikes typically have heavy frames, but the Ozark Trail and some of the other moderate-quality bikes might have lighter frames.

what’s outdated?

with bottom bracket

I don't know enough about bikes. Is 5.2 lb light, average, or heavy for aluminum frame?

It is a heavy bike, 2-3lbs is a light frame.

The weight I posted includes the bottom bracket, which is maybe half a pound, meaning the frame itself is ~4.75 lbs

For comparison, a budget steel gravel frame and fork from State Bicycle is 4130 chromoly steel and ~6.129 lbs. $479

Thanks for weighing the frame, John. I've wondered for a long time about the quality of aluminum used in Walmart frames.

Allowing half a pound for the BB seems to be accurate. (Found the weight of a Shimano UN72, probably higher quality and so maybe a bit lighter: 0.49 pounds.)

So the Ozark Trail frame is around the weight of a medium-sized double-butted chro-moly bare frame (around 4 to 4.85 pounds, per a search).

Probably unbutted heat-treated aluminum, then.

Likely better quality than the cheapest Kent and equivalent aluminum Walmart bikes, which I suspect have frames made of unbutted, un-heat-treated aluminum, in which case the lack of strength would be compensated for by the use of very thick-walled aluminum tubes.

- 2150g for a small sized aluminum frame is heavy and nearly unheard of.
- the dropouts are QR.
- postmount style brake
- heavy QR steel fork for cost savings.

Those are all uncommon for quality gravel bikes at this point. As a result, I said the frame is outdated.

The question should really be what is current about it other than some factory is making them still and a big box store is selling them.

If we want to talk hype in cycling this is it. It would be like if Pizza Hut made a dish similar to Olive Garden and everyone was freaking out about how great it is and massive leap for Italian food and all that sort of craziness. Yes certainly better offering then what Wally-Mart has offered in the past but at best it is a notch under the bottom end of a bike shop bike.

If I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and there weren't bike shops around and my frame and parts were destroyed and I needed to ride out of town and was desperate I would get one but I wouldn't put much time or money towards one unless I made a living on content creation like say Seth from Berm Peak.

So what less than $300 gravel bike would you recommend?

"Cost savings" is right: the prices of "quality" gravel bikes start at about five times the price of the Ozark Trail bike and go way up from there.

About the frame weight: thanks to John Flores going to the trouble of weighing his Ozark Trail's frame, it's clear that the frame weighs about the same as or a little less than a double-butted cro-mo steel frame.

That Walmart model has established a niche of its own---that of the legit inexpensive gravel-capable bike that can be ridden as is or upgraded with better components. People clearly see it as a decent platform for cobbling together their personalized version of a gravel bike.

Look on YouTube: there are dozens if not hundreds of videos where people enthuse over the bike. Probably took the planners at Walmart by surprise.