satrain18

Except for Trek's Project One bikes which are still being custom build right at its Waterloo headquarters. You can even pick your components, paint scheme, and colors youtube(dot)com/watch?v=YH4M_iFU2k0

Maelochs

First off, friends ... the Ignore button is in your brains. Read the name, ignore the post, I know it Sounds complicated ....

Secondly ... say what is this thread about? Nothing to do with the OP who could probably use some Real help, not a bunch of folks showing off their specialized knowledge and fully ripe opinions.

(For the record, I find the inside info about manufacturers interesting, so I read those posts ... but It isn't always about me." You guys need to repeat that for a while.)

To the OP:

Whether or not that bike holds up for you is a mystery for now. it really depends on what you do with it.

I have a friend who rides a cheap Walmart bike but he never pushes it at all, and it mostly holds up. He never loads it heavy, never rides it hard, never hits big bumps .... or even rolls off curbs.

As for the bike you bought ... I personally wouldn't trust a suspension fork which sold for less than $150-$200 .... which is about what your whole bike cost. But I say that knowing that I would ride with little skill and much verve and batter the thing, and anything cheap wouldn't last and wouldn't work (a lot of cheap forks are like pogo sticks---they move a little in the parking lot when you lean on them ... and kick back hard if you hit a bump, which lessens control ... and they break if you slam them really hard.)

Same with the rear shock.

Also a lot of the other minor bits ... cheap wheels which won't stay true, levers which bend, cheap hardware which snaps when abused .....

BUT

That is just my experience. You might ride yours and love it.

I would strongly advise against getting Any Walmart-style bike that had Any suspension. But ... you might love yours. And my opinion isn't worth anything. Your riding experience is.

You go ride the thing and You tell Us if it is any good. After all, you are perfectly situated to do product testing, while all we can do is repeat our prejudices.

jimmie65

All good advice.

My short opinion, as someone who rides a big box bike (an Iron Horse 29er): stay away from cheap dual-suspension bikes. The rear suspension is useless and only for show; that's an awful lot of dead weight to carry around.

DomaneS5

Damn. That was harsh.

tagaproject6

MRT2

If you are looking to mountain bike, you can't use that mongoose. The cheap, dual suspension won't hold up, nor will the rest of the cheap components. If you are buying new, you need to budget at least $500 or $600 for an entry level front suspension bike, and probably more. If you are looking used, than there are quite a few possibilities. Last year, I bought a used Kona Blast from a local bike shop for around $250. That is a bike that retails new for $1,000, retailed for around $800 4 or 5 years ago when it was new. When my son was just starting mountain biking 4 years ago, I bought him a used Schwinn Moab for around $150 from a local bike mechanic. This is minutia about bikes you need to know. The Schwinn after the mid 90s bankrupcy isn't the Schwinn old timers remember from their youth. But even though Schwinn, like Mongoose, is now a label slapped on cheap disposable bikes, there is a line of Schwinns that was good quality and sold at bike shops, like the used early 2000s Moab I bought my son.

And, when my son outgrew the Schwinn, I bought him a new Kona Cinder Cone that retails for $1,200, which I got for slightly less at my local bike shop.

But to repeat, the Mongoose you bought is more a toy than a mountain bike. Cheap and disposable. Return it if you can and get yourself a real bike. That is my advise.

Witterings

May be a case of harsh but true ... may also be why nobody's heard from the Newbie since ... guess he felt to come back would be taking the walk of shame

DomaneS5

People are right when they say to spend at least $500 on a mountain bike. It doesn't have to be anything great. I have one of the low-end Trek X-calibers (6) and it's been great for what I do with it. I paid $700 for it new in 2013 and it's been worth every dime. I took it last year for a "deluxe tuneup" at the LBS. Now it rides better than it did when it was new.

MRT2

Better to tell a newbie the truth, than to send him out to a mountain bike trail on a bike that won't hold up. When my son competed on a mountain biking team, we saw this every year. Some kids would show up for the first practice on a cheap, Wal Mart mountain bike and discover how bad those bikes really are. One of two things happened. Either they just quit, or in a week or two, they would be riding something better.

DomaneS5

It depends on what they are using it for. Wal Mart/box store bikes have their place. Most people who buy those bikes only ride them 3-5 times a summer and are not as hardcore about bikes as we are. Those bikes are fine to ride around the neighborhood or even flat rail trails or MUTs.

MRT2

I was taking OP at his word. If he wants to get into the world of mountain biking, then he needs to look beyond the Mongoose. If he wants a bike to ride around the neighborhood or on rail trails, there are many better options than a cheap, heavy dual suspension Mongoose.

DomaneS5

I agree... yes, he needs a much better bike than the Mongoose, especially if he's riding single track. He wasn't specific about what type of riding he was doing. "Mountain biking" could mean several different things.

Junkbeast

I once read that one of the big box store brands did some market research into how much people ride their bikes. It averaged out to around 150 miles. Therefore they specced/built their bikes to last about 150 miles.

Witterings

I'd even say they're better for more than just this, years ago when me and the Mrs were much younger and very fit from other sports / gym, we had a mobile home at the coast and as we weren't "into" cycling it was just something we did on sunny days. We bought the cheapest of bikes to leave down there and regularly went out for 25 mile rides without thinking about it .... those bikes served us well for many years and many miles as just basic workhorses so it does depend what you're intending to do and if it's a starting point that may never go further it serves a purpose .... and if it does upgrade later.

That said if I were spending what the OP was intending I wouldn't but a dual suspension, you'd get a better and lighter bike for the same amount of money ... I can't believe though my boy when he was 14 ish insisted on something similar, I took him down to a shop that had a decent specialized to try instead but he set his heart on it and wouldn't budge .. it's a heavy piece of S*&t ... funny thing is, he's now in his 2nd year studying rocket scientistry at University ... I wonder which he'd choose now as it's in Bath which is full of hills and must have worked out heavy things take more input to make them go up steep hills by now

Totally agree with this, don't buy the cheapest in the range, there's also no need to buy the most expensive but you do get an awful lot more if it's one or 2 up from the bargain basement .... especially if it's a known manufacturer ... or find 2nd one up from the bottom 2nd hand .... probably about the best bang for the buck you can get in my opinion.

Ritalalala

Problem was, you often got what you paid for.
Trek, quality really nice, but some of the price is a brand premium, you can choose some minority brands, like ICAN etc.

autonomy

Can't believe this hasn't been posted yet: Watch the whole video for more fun issues with "box store" brands.

fietsbob

Modern contract OEM sourcing, the contract describes what the customer, applying importer brand name , desires

and the factory does that, and boxes it up, loads a maritime container full of them
and many thousands of those containers, loaded on a ship, set sail every week..



...

tajar66

That is not a correct statement.
Bike frame designs are patented and always changing/improving. The frame may be built in the the same factory to different specifications, but they are not "They build pretty much the same frame for most name brand bikes. Just painted different is all."

bcpriess

Mongoose | MTB Bikes, Mountain Bikes
Mongoose | Urban, Commuter, Comfort Bikes
https://www.bikeradar.com/us/road/ge...-review-51656/

THESE Mongooses are solid bikes. Standard components, well constructed frames, and priced about the same as other major bike brands. The Selous is a decent cross bike, for instance, and the Guide is reviewed well. But they have no relationship, aside from the name painted on the downtube, with the bikes sold in big box stores. Different manufacturer entirely.

Maelochs

Poor OP wanted to find out abot hs bike ... and found himself neck-deep in a pile of ideological arguments. how was he to know that BF is about fighting, not cycling?

He just happened to write a first post that sounded exactly like a bell ringing ... half thought it ws the start of Round One, the other half thought Pavlov had brought the food.

We all have cycling in common ... so of Course we are going to fight about it.

We should rename this place Bike Fights.

Bonzo Banana

I'm almost 100% certain you are wrong in that most of the time they use an existing certified designs that maybe have minor geometry tweaks, different choice of tube profile and other minor variations allowed for in the certification. The vast bulk of frames will be fairly generic existing designs and the higher end models that can absorb the cost and expense of prototyping, testing and certification can be innovative. It is the marketing of such companies that they convince people that their bikes are unique at all price points because that is marketing. I would also point out that existing portfolio designs are designs that have been made for many years and feedback from importers has told the manufacturer where the frame has failed and other issues so they have improved over time. A generic frame is not necessarily a bad frame it could be a better design in reality to a brand new design that has just come to market. I really don't see the problem with generic frames if they are more likely to be stronger and result in a cheaper more competitive priced bike anyway. I don't know what its like in the US but often shop brand bikes beat big established brand bikes for performance and value in the UK in magazines and online reviews. These shop brands have neither the engineering ability or design capability to fully design their own frame it's often just a bunch of riders testing bikes and tweaking geometry on existing frame designs to work with the best components of the day to create a high value performance bike nothing more really. My point is you shouldn't just suck down all marketing blurb from the big brands such marketing is not meant to be fair its meant to manipulate you into believing there is a quality and performance advantage to their brand. Big Chinese manufacturers like fuji-ta will sell bikes to anyone be it a retailer or an established big brand reduced to importing bikes.

Charliekeet

fietsbob

Brand is at its base, a name painted on the frame.. Could be one guy .
hand built frames can be built one at a time..
OTOH the components require a larger scale factory..

In an OEM factory, it's the contracts behind it's specs that matter.
parts to be fitted and brand/logo is part of the requirements..
Importer product managers choose those.
An OEM supplier makes many brands for other companies..




...

Jock Crayaan

Generally in manufacturing (bike frames by Trek lets say for this example), the frame would be designed by Trek’s engineers. That design would go out to suppliers who would be capable of building that frame based on the specs provided by Trek.

Once that supplier builds that frame the initial proofs would go back to Trek for approval by engineers and a QA dept. Once approved the frame manufacturer would supply whatever agreed quantity of those frames to Trek.

Seems unlikely that frame manufacturers just build generic frames, then bike companies would buy those frames and design their bikes around that generic design. I could be wrong, but that sounds ass-backwards to me.

tajar66

To add to the above accurate statement. The frames aluminum or carbon are then fitted with components to meet certain price points.