My Eastside got stolen a little bit ago so I'm kind of on the lookout for a new bike. I'm going to be traveling for a bit over the summer, so thought I'd wait until I got back before looking seriously but I saw a State FGFS bike on Craigslist for $250 that caught my eye and was hoping to get thoughts on it? Before I got my Eastside I commuted for years on a BMX cruiser, and liked the way it rode, so the BMX feel on a bigger bike has some appeal. $250 is also an amount I'm comfortable spending without worrying so much if it gets stolen down the road. So would this be an OK candidate for a beater bike for around town (most rides are less than 5 miles, with the occasional 20 mile round trip ride to the beach. I'd probably want to put a freewheel on it and change the gearing up a bit to make the longer rides a bit easier.

Not speaking on the bike or quality,
But i just went to State's website,
and you can get a brand new FGFS on sale for 325

So if you end wanting that style/frame it might be nice to spring the extra 75 bucks for something without a history.

Thanks. I saw that too after posting. I thought I'd seen the bike a couple of years ago when I was in the market and thought it was $400+, but am probably misremembering. That seems really cheap for a new bike with a chromoly frame, at least compared to the other completes I've been looking at. It's hard to even get a new BMX at that price. What's going on? I'm assuming really cheap components...but anything else?

Cheap ass components, sweat shop labour, all of that good **** that you'd expect to find with budget bikes wrapped up in nice shiny packaging. That being said their higher end models are decent, but not really worth the amount that they're sold for.

I hear this about a lot of bikes here, but I'm not really sure what to make of it, since I don't see lots of suggestions for bikes in the same price range besides a couple on BD. Ideally I'd like to buy a used bike that is a bit of a beater but with an OK frame, and replace components with slightly nicer pieces as they break. But I typically find that people are asking the same or even more for a used semi-crappy brand like State or Republic than they go for new. And if they've upgraded the components on it to justify that price they're not saying.