acidfast7

I find the Denali good value for money.

I-Like-To-Bike

It and every other bicycle sold by Walmart, Target, et al. are just not "acceptable" bicycles and never will be to a slice of so-called bicycling "enthusiasts" who are passionate about bad mouthing product without an LBS provenance; regardless of the value provided to the user or intended use by the owner.

Methinks a lot of the passion for bashing (so-called) BSOs is related to the employment status of the zealots or their association with the bicycle clubs affiliated with an LBS, in conjunction with a lack of empathy for those bicyclists who do not share their own bicycling use/preferences/enthusiasms profile.

woodcraft

IMO, the term started not with snobby cyclists,

but with bike mechanics faced with the unhappy task of trying to maintain/repair them.

Carverbiker

Carverbiker

jasnooks

I agree, but only if the purchaser is capable of, and willing to completely disassemble the bike, and then reassemble it with everything greased and adjusted properly. And at the same time, recognizing and replacing the few parts that are complete garbage, such as the rear derailleur, pedals, and most importantly the God awful brake pads.
If the purchaser isn't capable of, or is unwilling to do these things, then the Denali isn't a good value, nor is any other department store bike.

I paid $169 for mine on sale, did all of the above, and it took me to work for 7 months with no failures. I maintain it regularly, and it's still going strong, So in my case, it's a good value for the money.

jasnooks

I don't know if all this is true, but I do get the same vibe, which is why I rarely post here on BF, and also why I never ask questions about any of my "POS BSO,s".

acidfast7

I think people are much more hands-on over here in Europe.

In the east, that is driven by lack of disposable income and people need to be hands on. In the west, people hack things (not always well) much more than in the states. In the middle, central Europe, people are really spec-driven and know everything before making a single purchase, I base this upon living under the three regimes and growing up in the US.

I find that the low-end bike market in Europe is quite strong (Aldi/Lidl/Netto sell bikes like hotcakes at €200 (and €40 of that is tax)) as is the very high-end. I find it very middle of the road in the US, which isn't really the case for anything over here.

Thus, I feel qualified to state that the Denali is good value for money and most people over here would use the **** out of the junk parts out of the box and change them at the first sign of being worn out as they would've read Stiftung Warentest before making the purchase.

Like this for bike locks.

jasnooks

Easy bro, I'm on your side..
I'm all for running **** parts into the ground,, but the rear derailleur that came on my Denali was seriously total crap, like going in the rear wheel total crap. Loose as a goose.
The brake pads were hard as a rock, and would barely stop the bike, even at low speeds.
Both of these issues were totally unsafe.

cyccommute 

HelMart only list one size...the 22.5". Kudos to them for listing an actual frame size instead of a wheel size but it is still only one size.

While I haven't actually weighed a Denali, I have hefted a few of them. They feel heavier than 30 lb. But 30 lb for an aluminum framed bicycle is still very, very heavy.

cyccommute 

Exactly. Bike shops simply won't work on them because they aren't fixable. It then falls to the co-op and volunteer shops to keep them functioning. They are difficult to work on and even when you can get them to work marginally right, they won't stay that way for long. Being a broken record, I don't hate the people who ride them. I hate the bikes because they are difficult to work on and most of the time spent working on them is wasted time.

cyccommute 

And there is the problem. The grease in all of the bearings of most bikes coming from HelMart is about equivalent to the grease that you can scrape off the nose of the average person...not a teenager. Completely disassembling a bike is not a task that many people have the skills nor tools to perform, much less know how to make the adjustments necessary after reassembly. There are some things that can be done on a bike with "ordinary" tools many people have at home but there are a lot of tasks that require specialized tools and specialized knowledge to do. For example, to remove, repack and install a bottom bracket on a Denali requires a crank pulling tool as there is no other easy way to remove a crank. A hook spanner, a pin spanner and a fixed cup tool are also useful but, depending on other tools someone has available, they may be able to substitute for those tools. At about $15 each, that's $45 for just the bottom bracket. The headset requires another $30 to $40 worth of tools. The hubs require at least one cone wrench...probably 2 since the front hub is likely a different size. That's another $30 in tools. That's a bit over $100 in tools for a $200 bicycle.

And most people who are going to buy a Denali at HelMart aren't really people who have a lot of bicycle experience. They are going to find the fiddly adjustments needed for making any bike work properly frustrating. People who own more expensive bikes find the fiddly adjustments frustrating and they are working with parts that have a better chance of working properly.

Pa lease! People are people. Some are hands on and some aren't. I see 1500 people per year for the last 10 years that are "hands-on" and my co-op is only one of thousands across the US. Some people...myself included...keep bikes running on old parts for decades. Some people also buy new bikes all the time or just take their bikes to a shop. The fact that shops exist in Europe that provide the same service as shops here in the US is testament to the fact that people aren't any more "hands-on" than they are here.

rydabent

Of course that is pretty much nonsense. A bike is a machine and can be fixed.

Bikes bought in big box stores these days have frames that may be heavy, but are quite rideable. About the only thing that may cause a problem is the shifting. That of course can be fixed with a new RD and shifter. They do not have to be top of the line.

acidfast7

Sorry man, different driven by economics and an engineering focus as I previously stated. I'm say 1500 is a very small sample size of people to interact with.

Shops exist more as a point-of-sale than as service.

No more discussion about it until you've lived in both systems as your arguments are one-sided.

indyfabz

I have known well several shop owners who would not work on BSOs precisely because they cannot be "fixed" in the sense that work will last for an acceptable period of time without causing safety concerns. And it goes beyond shifting to things like bottom brackets/cranks and wheels and brakes and headsets. It's not worth the liability risk for them. It's also not worth having to deal with a pissed off customer who comes back for the same repair two weeks later claiming the shop did substandard work.

GamblerGORD53

Comparing Europe and Colorado is laughable alright.
Most Europeans don't have to adjust STUPID deFailleurs and STUPID rim brakes because they don't HAVE them.
Sturmey Archer DRUM brakes have NO adjustments and will NEVER be worn out by city riders. Mine has 24,000 miles with 8,100 on tour in mountains.
Tighten the cable once a year, maybe.
New design Sturmey Archer RD 3 speeds can go 2 years/ 5,000 miles with NO fiddling either. With 2 low GI instead of a high gear, they could climb mountain roads just fine also. Rebuilding takes a couple YouTube lessons, then it's easy with 4 or 5 tools.
Putting flimsy 24 speed defailleurs on CHEAP path bikes makes NO SENSE. Americans have been totally duped into the MTB fantasy.
And saying POS is only about snobbery is ludicrous. We are trying to protect them from FAULTY dangerous garbage.
MANY people die on these pathetic things.

acidfast7

I must admit that when I lived in Germany, I saw many more Rohloffs than SA 3-speed IGHs. That is inverted in England.

GamblerGORD53

Yah, my tour bike has a Rohloff with 15,500 miles. Still no cable changes. Lots of multi tour guys have them now.
It has a Spyre disc brake now, that is easy to use.

I-Like-To-Bike

When I last lived in Germany, 2002, I never saw bikes with S-A or Shimano 3 speeds at all, and few equipped with deraillers on workdays. The greatest number of bikes that I saw being ridden everyday in the Heidelberg area by people of all ages, and elsewhere when I traveled in Germany were upright bikes equipped with Sachs 3 speed coaster brake hubs or single speeds, also with coaster brake; just like these two.

jasnooks

Incorrect.
19" Denali

acidfast7

I suggest that you do not disagree with cyclocommute.

I find that it rarely is worth my time. That user will tell you how your bicycle is (or how life is) without having owned one (or having lived there.)

Best to not engage as the fruits of your labour will be minimal at best.

cyccommute 

There is a limit to how much should be spent on "fixing" these bikes. You can very easily spend far more than it cost to purchase the bike to just make it functional, even if you do the work yourself. If you pay someone else to do it, double or triple that cost. So the question to ask how much is a $100 bike worth?

And, since you don't seem to have been following the discussion, it is not shifting that is the issue. Shifting is often the issue but there are more serious problems that aren't as easily addressed. A few of them include steel (more like pig iron) crank arms that erode and round out on the taper with the fixing bolt still in place; sheared rear axles; completely eroded bearings in the hubs, bottom bracket and headset; and, my personal favorite, bottom bracket cups that pull apart during extraction. I thought the cups (it's occurred multiple times) were just cross threaded but the cup actually pulls apart at some of the threads. I've been able to get the cups out but it takes a 3 foot cheater bar and a lot of effort. I'm not looking forward to the day when one of those cups separates in the frame. Just trying to remove the split cup basically ruins the frame and makes it unsalvageable.

Maelochs

Not every machine can be fixed... in fact many machines nowadays are made so they cannot even be opened once they are manufactured.

I have a ton of burnt-out coffee-makers that were glued and riveted shut so a person had to literally break the device to open it up to eve see if it could be fixed. (I used to drink a lot of coffee.)

There are No spare or replacement parts offered for those devices. They are so cheap, just buy another one, seems to be the thinking---which I find offensive, but whatever.

Really bad BSOs are the same. Really cheap plastic or pot-metal levers, bearing cups, retaining bolts .... just really cheap parts, and no replacements available. The only option is to do what i did, and scavenge dozens of BSOs, or upgrade to real parts ... which costs a lot of money, way more than the bike costs originally. Weak rims with bad bearings, cheap headsets and bottom brackets maybe not particularly carefully inserted and maybe not properly lubricated, cheap bendable/breakable levers which will break if you try to bend them straight ... I even had a chain ring snap off a one-piece Ashtabula crank while crossing an intersection ....

So all I have to do is buy a $150 bike, then two new wheels, a new front and rear derailleur, a new BB, a new headset, and new levers ... plus the saddle, which I would expect to replace ..... and now I have $400 worth of parts on an overweight frame. And if I had to buy the tools to do the work, there is another $100. Why not just buy a $600 bike?

And please don't tell me about all this unless you have Actually Done This ... because I Did. i scavenged and rebuilt BSOs, dumpster-dived behind bike shops, bought batches of spare parts, scrounged yard sales ....

Sure, if you buy a broom and replace the bristles and then the handle, you have "fixed" the broom ... right? The only way to "fix" some BSOs is to constantly pump in cheap parts, or buy a bunch of real parts ... but the only sensible way, economically, to get all those good parts is to buy a good bike---which is what I did as soon as i had saved up enough money.

I don't look down on people who ride Any bike, whether it be a $16,000 bling-machine or a $99 Walmart BSO. I also don't think either bike says anything about the rider necessarily. I also know form experience that for a person who wants to ride vigorously every day, a BSO is a money-losing proposition.

And for all those folks who bought bSOs and made them last ... cool. I could have bought a Yugo and babied it for 35 years so i could still be driving it slowly today. it would still be a piece of crap communist copy of an old Fiat, but I could have kept it running if i was interested.

Nothing against people who have made that choice.

I rode BSOs for several years while I went from near zero to being able to afford a couple of good bikes. i don't regret the experience, I learned a lot about roadside wrenching, I walked home carrying a broken bike more than i would have wanted but not as often as some might imagine .... and I would never buy a BSO again, because the best they can ever be will never be worth what it costs to be that.

Well ... I Hope I never buy another BSO. if my personal economy were to tank, i would start hitting the rash heaps and yard sales totally without shame ... and I would ride BSOs ... until I had saved enough for a bike which was strong and reliable, just like I did last time.

cyccommute 

I have been to Europe and I have been to bicycle shops in Europe. They have service bays just like American shops and they offer mechanical services. They kind of have to have mechanical services if they are going to be even just a point of sale since they have to assemble the bikes. A proper shop assembly isn't like the kind of assembly that you'll get at HelMart.

Not everyone in the US goes to a shop to fix their bikes either. Many do it at home or at co-ops. The 1500 people that I see is per year. I've been doing this for 10 years. Yes, my co-op is the only one in Denver but there are other co-ops in Colorado and many of them throughout the US. People here work on their bikes just as much as Europeans do.


You don't get to set limits on discussion. As I recall, you really didn't do much bicycling until you went to Europe so it's not like you have a lot of experience on this side of the Pond that you can draw on to make an argument that is "two-sided".

Maelochs

I almost missed that ... yeah, the cups seal to the frame and when they come out (18" ratchet handle and a 30" metal tube) they often take the threads with them. The cranks get loose, round out the cheap spindles, you want to replace them ... but good luck if the cups were installed with no lube, because the frame will self-destruct.

Still "fixable." I have a couple "repair" threaded-together square-taper bottom brackets on my shelf right now. So ... just tear the old set-up apart, buy a new crank set and repair bottom bracket .... you can do it all for about $60 ... for a $100 bike which still has major issues.