My first bike as an adult is a low quality Schwinn I assume came from a department store, I got it used on craigslist. It has served me well, but all kinds of maintenance problems...weighs a ton and keeps falling apart. Still, I've taken it on some long distance rides and never had a problem there. I just want to keep saving up for a good road bike for real pleasure riding but I can't afford that, but I'm reluctant to keep sinking money into this thing...still, it's pretty damn good for commuting and like I said I've had some great long pleasure rides on it. So I'll probably keep it just for commuting even if I do get a good road bike.

My first 10 speed was a free spirit bike from Sears and I rode the pee out of it for years as a kid.

I bought my Wal-Mart Schwinn Aluminum Comp 2 years ago and use it for ridding around town. I probably only ride it about 5 miles per week, so at most, it could have about 520 miles on it. When it gets wet I dry it off. When the chain looks a little dry I oil it. I keep the tires inflated. The shifters still work very well and actually more convenient than the shifters on my '76 Superior. I wonder if this bike can be upgraded with newer better components. I think I'll have this bike for a while, along side it's big brother, my 1976 Schwinn Superior.

Also, the seat on my crappy aforementioned bike is the most comfortable thing I can imagine. I can't see paying lots of bank for some fancy saddle when this one has been nothing but awesome.

My first bike after a few years of not riding was a Schwinn Ditch. Besides the fact that information on the bike could not be found anywhere, it was an okay ride. Shifting was always an issue; in fact, I couldn't shift to the big ring until I took it to the mechanic to have them verify that (not surprisingly) the drivetrain was built incorrectly. It had full suspension, but it wasn't that tight, so I had a lot of bob.

I will say that it was really comfortable to ride, and after I put some slicks and a better saddle/seatpost, it was a hell of a lot of fun! It was the bike that made me want to go to road cycling.

Fast forward to a few months later. As I'm getting out of my Japanese class, I mount my bike, begin to pedal and then feel myself drop a bit. It turns out that the damage was far worse:



That was the seat tube, which sheared right across. I'm pretty sure that had to do more with the assembler overtightening something around there, though it could have very well been a frame defect.

I will say that Pacific Cycle's service was very good at handling the matter, and they sent me a complete bike with wheels and tires as a replacement. Flipped it, and I haven't heard from the owner since. Last time I communicated with him, his wife was loving the bike!

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Forge frames are manufactured by Giant Bicycles. Another member here bought one, and was very impressed with its ride quality.

It would make a good beater

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15K? You did good Machka, we bought for our son a two hundred dollar front suspension Mongoose MTB from Target many years back, he bent the rear axle, blew out the front suspension, and wheels in an afternoon's ride.

I took my skyliner into the LBS today because I bent the RD hanger in a crash on the single track yesterday, the mechanic gave it a once over and asked what I paid for it, when I told him he said for the price it's pretty hard to beat how it was equipped. I ended up replacing the RD while I was there with a Deore because the RD had a bent cage and the bolt that atttaches it to the frame was stripped, but it still wasn't bad, I got out the door for about $40 with labor and parts, not too bad for something that could've happened to ANY bike in the same crash. Although I'm now spoiled by the deore opposed to the Tourney RD, I also noticed that Haro uses the same RD that I had on their 20" MTB's for kids along with the same shifters and the crank set is identical to what Haro uses on some of thier mid range 26" MTB's. (20" going for about $290 and the 26" I referred to was priced at $430) Overall I am impressed with my purchase, although my next bike will probably be a Haro Flightline Comp.

I'm very careful with my stuff. I've taken my Mongoose on a few trails, and of course snowbiking, but most of my riding was on the road ... and definitely no leaping off curbs or any of that sort of thing.

I just had a Magna Glacier Point (the lowest end Magna mountain bike) stolen by some teenagers. They broke the lock right beneath a security camera. I thought this was theft proof and use to take this over to a lot of places across the river in DC, but to my surprise it gets stolen in Alexandria. The consolation is it wasn't one of my better bikes.

You learn a lot about bike repair riding one of these. I have fixed dozens of magnas, huffys, and those pacific ones. The bottom brackets on these are absolute crap....near unrepairable if ridden long enough. The little plastic shifters are the same. I have stripped and broken several sets of walmart shifters simply by doing routine maintenance.

Other than that, you can probably ride one for quite some time and if it works for you....great!

I can pretty much guarantee you that it WASN'T the assembler overtightening everything that caused the seat tube to shear.

The crappy assemblers don't put the wrench to every bolt, and the good ones know where to wrench and where to leave well enough alone.

Pacific Cycle handles about 85% crap, every once in a while a good one slips through, almost as if by accident. The manufacture on that bike just resulted in a flaw that came out while you had it. The EXACT same thing happened to a $700 Motobecane from BikesDirect.com under a friend of mine a few years ago. He wasn't as lucky as you with customer support.

Had a shock when I went to my LBS as they were assembling kids bikes for christmas. What I would term Wallymart quality bikes at that. EXCEPT- these were a bit different. No Suspension- and Shimano Tourney groupset.

The bikes looked great and the mechanic was pleased with the assembly. Brakes and gears dialled in Quick- Nothing out of alignment and wheels true enough to only need a couple of tweeks. Usual things to change like brake and gear cables to stainless steel. Usual things to check and lube like wheel bearings and brake pivots.

So these bikes have been checked and assembled by a professional- will be a cheap bike for someone for christmas and will not be falling apart on Boxing day. Bit different to a Wallymart bike.

Right now I'm riding a $55.00 Wal-mart Roadmaster MTB and a Trek model 820.

I'm not at all certain that I like the Trek better than the Roadmaster.

Those cheap department store bikes aren't so bad. You need to be able to adjust and do minor repairs, of course. But anyone who can't or won't learn maintenance is not cut out to be a bicyclist anyway.

Ignorance is bliss. Whatever you do, do not test ride anything else that costs more at an LBS.

The best deals at Wal-Mart are the one speed beach cruisers. From time to time, Wal-Mart will have Schwinn one speed beach cruisers that are sturdy and well built. They sell for under $100 and are comparable to beach cruisers at bike shops selling for $200 or $250. Because they have a coaster brake and no shifting, it is easy for owners to correct any problems from how the store staff assembled the bikes.

But, the Wal-Mart bikes with hand brakes and shifters have a lot of problems. The brake calipers are usually of very low quality. The bikes are usually poorly assembled, which means the owner must reassemble them. Many of the parts are "non-standard", so a bike shop won't carry replacement parts. If a brake caliper part fails, a bike shop would need to install a new pair of calipers...at a cost that would be more than buying another Wal-Mart bike.

Bike shops often have good mountain bikes for around $300 to $350 that have excellent warranties. The bike shop will assembly them, and provide free adjustments when needed. The parts are all standard, and easy to replace. These bikes will take the abuse of daily riding for five or ten years without any problems. A safe, reliable $350 bike that last ten years is MUCH cheaper than a $75 Wal-Mart bike that will be trashed after a year or two of casual riding.

Wally world sells many junk bikes but they do have some that are OK if checked out carefully. Local bike shops often sell junk as well so buying from one is no guarantee of quality.

Don't worry. I've been around and I'm not all that ignorant. I know better than to spend as much to ride a bike as I do to drive a car.

Maybe they might have some bikes that aren't as good as others, but you generally get some kind of warranty and free tune-ups with even the crappiest LBS machines.

This isn't a strong argument for buying from Target.

My brother had a walmart bike that he was mountain biking on.. The rear derailleur was way out of adjustment when we got it, after I adjusted the high and low and barrel adjuster, he fell and broke the derailleur a week later. I shortened the chain and made it a single speed and its been fine since then and we beat on it pretty bad.

I owned a Magna, for 4 days.

I bought it at a Salvation Army when I was in Santa Cruz on a business trip so I could get from the corporate apartment to the beach and back. I chose it because it was the only bicycle in the store that was ready to ride. At the end of my time there, I dropped it off at the Bike Church, a bike coop.

I didn't look odd. I wasn't the only old guy there riding on an old bmx bike.

I actually got a lot of compliments on its looks, and also used it to commute to and from work one day. The bus there dropped me off just across the freeway, but going back I had a long ride to the nearest bus stop.

My wife had a Magna for a week. We got it at the Salvation Army in Maui. We had a conference on Maui, and decided to do a several days tour and circle the island whilst there. I should note the road is rather rough, for about half of it. I brought my trailer on the plane (James Frames). This trailer consisted of a Rubbermaid box, plus a frame and wheels to mount the box upon. It all disassembles to go inside the box. I had to get a rubbermaid that was airplane size friendly, as the stock one was too big. Plan was for me to carry most of the gear in the trailer, and we brought a seatpost rack and panniers for Bonnie. Salvation Army only had the one bike, so we went to K-Mart and bought me a brand new Huffy Santa Fe cruiser for $99. The Huffy was happy. We jury-rigged on the trailer, and it would tow. Pity about the fatboy seat, but I didn't think to bring a seat. The back-pedal only brake was a concern, as Maui is a bit hilly. We had a nice tour. Pushed up hills, of course, and down the steep ones. Bent the axle on the trailer (rough roads), boiled pretty much all of the grease out of the Huffy brake, and the Magna took FREQUENT (irritatingly so) adjustments to keep underway, but we made it. At the end the trailer link exploded and had to bungie and wire it to the bike. Not real safe.... Gave both bikes to the Salvation Army afterwards. They were very pleased with the cruiser, since the paint still looked good! Wheels and brake were a bit rough by the end of the week but fixable (if you could repack the rear hub). I would say though that we get much better deals on utilitarian bikes in Germany. For not much more than 100 euros you can get a simple, but real bike, with parts which can be repaired. Cheaper US bikes have dreadful quality materials. When you tighten a nut it may well break the bolt or strip. I was trying to fix a cheap BMX bike for a neighbor kid and was mostly afraid of breakiing the parts whilst tightening with the spanner. Decent bikes, like decent people, are a lot easier to live with.

Find something that looks like this at your LBS? BTW the coaster brake failed in the first two weeks and it was a hassle to get a replacement wheel, WM wanted to refund the money because they didn't have anymore single speed cruisers in stock. I wanted a working bike. Fortunately the District Manager was in the store and understood what "customer service" means, he had them take a wheel off of a similar bike and give it to me. FWIW I bought this bike for a specific purpose and needed a disposable bike, it has served that purpose.

Aaron

you know, i dont see why there is such a dislike of department store bikes. personaly i was going to buy one to use as a touring bike, but i got my trek because the trek was CHEAPER than the walmart bike i was looking at. granted i know that i would have had to adjust the bike and all, but thats a given no mater what the brand. in fact i was going to buy this bike. thing is, now the walmart bike is cheaper, go figure.

I think the two largest problems are that many people recall department store bikes from the 70's as well as remembering when Schwinn was a reputable brand, along with quite few others. The bikes WM sells today under many of the old department store brands are a far cry from the ones from the 70's. They are built to a specific price point, quality be damned and QC is by the consumer. WM seems to believe that it is cheaper to exchange/refund than it is to build a quality product, it is all about profit margins. They actually sell a couple of bikes that are a good value for the money, one being the Mongoose Paver.

I work on a lot of different bikes and have for over 35 years and can assure you that the quality of the 70's Huffys, Columbias, AMFs and any other department store brand are of a better quality than the BSO's that are being produced for WM today. Can you get a serviceable bike from WM? Yes, is it a good value for the dollar, possibly. Will last like a name brand LBS bike, maybe. But when it comes time to replace worn out parts be prepared to spend as much or more than the bike cost new. Which usually means it gets tossed into the already overflowing waste stream and yet another one is purchased that will suffer a similar fate.

Aaron