NYMXer

You know, that is pretty blatant incompetence right there and if the store sold it that way and someone got injured, I'd love to be on the jury deciding the award. Scary, very scary!

gpsblake

I have done two long distance tours on Walmart bikes (Schwinn Sidewinders)

This past year from the Atlantic Coast to Bryan, Texas

In 2005 from South Carolina to Abilene, Texas.

No problems at all other than some flats and a screw coming loose.

I got 14,000 miles off my last Schwinn Sidewinder from Walmart.

vjbknife

I work at a bike shop which is within a mile of a WalMart. I know for a fact that the Janitor assembles the bikes there and has no training at bike maintenance and does not even ride. They are not only poor quality bikes but the assembly is truly incompetent. Ride what ever you like but the fact is that for $150 you are not getting much. In some cases they are not even what I would consider safe to ride when properly assembled. Smooth steel rims with crappy brake shoes that are impossible to align don't give me warm fuzzies. On one occasion a woman brought her Schwinn bike back for the third or forth time complaining that her tires kept going flat after we had changed out the tubes. The steel rims had sharp edges that were not formed inward so there was no way to prevent them from contacting the tube, and it would cut the tubes every time after a few miles of riding. I told her that she could not bring in the bike again because it was such low quality that we would not work on it. She called me a bike snob and I agreed.

I-Like-To-Bike

Enuff said.

vjbknife

I contend that you can with a little effort buy a decent used bike, learn a little from the net or a book, clean it, fix it, lube it and have a better bike than a box store can offer for about the same money. Maybe even less money and then you know a little about the bike and you will be happier with your ride for a longer time than the walmart choice. I teach bike maintenance classes and repair bikes 30 hours a week, so in the 7 or so years I have been working on bikes I have seen just about everything. Brand new bikes from walmart and similar stores do not have the bearing adjusted at all, seldom have the brakes adjusted properly and might have proper shifting if you are really lucky. And that also depends on the bike being equipped with components that are able to be properly set up in the first place.

Ride what ever you like, but there is more to a bike than the parts that come on it, set up and maintenance are key to enjoyable cycling. And if the parts of the bike are so poorly made that they can not be correctly set up then good luck. YMMV.

EnjoyinTheRide

Realistically we have three options.
1) buy a new quality bike from your LBS
2) buy a new low quality bike from your local boxstore.
3) Find a used bike, good bad or ugly...its used.....

Now the decision we make should be based on our (meaning your) needs. Usually there is a lot involved in the decision. But the reality is you will get what you pay for.......And I mean the whole experience of purchasing and riding the bike.

I grew up with custom Ross, Schwinn and Huffy bikes. They were all made with the highest quality and lasted many years. Two years ago I got a job up the street from my house and wanted a cheap bike to go back and forth.

I bought this:


Its a Huffy Cruiser, cost me 89 bucks. Now when I bought this bike I fully understood it was cheap. I rolled it out of the store, I took it home and went thru the setup again on my own. I tightened everything, put some lube in all the right areas and off I went. I do regular maintenence on it and of course keep it out of the elements when not in use. Shes gone about 300 miles so far. Only issue is the seat but that I can easily replace.

I will say this. I purchased a "cruiser"...there is really nothing too them. I think when you buy say a mountain bike or a version with derailleurs, cables , break pads etc....at that point I think the cheapness really shows thru so keep that in mind.

I did vote yes because they do serve some purposes....They would not sell as many if they didnt serve those purposes...that being said. Consider it a stepping stone to get something of better quality in the near future.

I did order a Giant Simple single for Spring 2017 It will cost me 330 when all said and done. But I will not get rid of the above Wally World bike lol...Ohhhh no ive had too much fun on it lol..

Maelochs

Unless you need a bike Now, to go places Now ....

It is true that anyone who rides would benefit from knowing how to break down and build up a bike, and most particularly from how to adjust it ... but someone who needs cheap transport now probably should not buy a used bike before one learns anything ... because one might buy a bike with terminal issues. or, one might buy a bike which needs more work/parts/time than the person can affords right then. or one might not have another week to wait to go through the bike, figure out what it needs, order whatever it needs, and wait for the parts to arrive at the LBS or in the mail.

over and over it is said but overlooked ... people who buy Wal-Mart bikes are either A.) Not cyclists, but people who need very cheap transportation, and I am sorry but a cheap Wal-Mart BSO is usually going to be ready to ride at least a little right out of the store, while what one could get on Craigslist for $100 or $150 is a real hit-or-miss ....

Or B.) People who want to ride but cannot afford anything better right now, and find it better to be on the road on a cheap BSO than to be sitting home saving pennies (Enjoying the Ride is a perfect example. $90 on Craigslist ... real dice-roll ... whereas he got a sound and practical simple bike for $90.)

Type C: Parents buying throwaway bikes for their kids who will literally beat them to trash and throw them away (or outgrow them) in a season anyway. Buying a bike on CL for an eight-year-old, fixing it up real nice, and watching him/her do the classic rolling jumpoff/let it crash dismount might be a bit annoying. Having to ask "Where is your bike" to hear "I left it in the street near Jimmy's house," or "In Pedro's driveway" might also irk.

Wal-mart BSOs have their places ....


and this is a horse-jelly topic anyway.

jefnvk

So, anyone with a little self-motivation can learn to refurb a bike, including scouring the internet for the proper parts, completely ripping it apart, running cables, tuning derailleurs, making sure they have the correct brake pads, cleaning up rust, changing out tires and spokes, but you know the person putting the bikes together at Wal-Mart (and it takes scant little knowledge to put a bike together from a box) doesn't have the capability to do so properly? That logic doesn't work. If they are capable of refurbing a CL find, they are surely capable of noticing and fixing anything wrong with a BSO.

I mean, I assembled furniture when I worked at Office Max. I had no training, I wasn't a furniture expert, but it is not as if it is a complicated procedure.

Maelochs

The question is not if the Wal-Mart employee Could, but whether s/he Did.

Judging from what some of us have seen ... the answer would be "No."

On the other hand, one who deliberately did that learning, would be more capable whether s/he worked at Wal-Mart of shopped on CL.
Did your desks have suspension and dual derailleurs?

hanshananigan

Regardless of bike quality, I was fortunate that folks in the first group ride I attended did not make a big deal about me riding a rigid Huffy MTB. After a few rides it was obvious I would benefit from a more trail-worthy bike (that I quickly acquired) and has led to 15 years and counting of blissful riding.

jefnvk

The chairs had suspension, and I'll take tuning a derailleur over the bits and pieces that keep a desk together any day

I-Like-To-Bike

I would not place too much faith in the accuracy of the reports of the posters with an obvious financial or emotional bias towards promoting LBS business.

What some of "us" have seen and reported with glee (the LBS devotees) is exactly what "we" were expecting to see while looking for evidence that the big bad competitor (who is eating our lunch in bike sales volume) is an evildoer selling the equivalent of Bicycles of Mass Destruction.

Kaze6

If you don't know how to align brakes, and it took three or four times before you figured out why the tubes were failing, you have a wonderful career waiting for you, assembling bikes at Walmart.

vjbknife

The brakes on the lowest end bikes that they sell do not have the ability to be aligned with the rims. And the steel rims that are sometimes used have a smooth painted surface instead of a machined brake track so that even if you could align them they are not going to get much grip anyway. Our shop tried to do right by this woman by replacing the tubes in her wheels at no charge several times until I looked at her wheels to find out into why they kept failing and realized that the rims were so poorly made that the folded edges of the metal were cutting the tube material. This is when I suggested that she return the bike because it was defective. And I suggest that you don't have a clue.

Maelochs

if you can say this twice and not see the problem ....

Dude I feel sketchy putting a new tube in a tire even Once if I cannot find a puncture or debris through the tire tread. If I saw the same wheel come up flat in some short span of time, I would Never put in a tube until I found out the problem ... and I am not a "Mechanic" in a "Bicycle Shop," I am just some guy.

"Several times" you sent her out with defective rims and didn't even bother to check, and you think you did Right by her?

Kaze6

This will come as a great shock to everyone who worked at a bike shop in the 1970s. All that time, we were doing the impossible. For that matter, Park Tool used to make a wrench specifically for adjusting those brakes that you think "do not have the ability to be aligned with the rims." I've got one in my toolbox.

I would agree that they can't be EASILY adjusted, but that's not the same as impossible.

Well, for "not having a clue," I would still say that it was you. A child can tell when a tube has been sliced, and he or she would be asking "Why?"

EnjoyinTheRide

Anything on any bike can be fixed at least from my opinion. The question becomes is it viable.... 40 years ago there were no Walmarts, Target, Online etc. You had to go to a bike shop. That does correctly correlate to the fact that there are less bikes shops today than back then.

They reworked the market yes they did. Schwinn only made what they made, so did Huffy etc. But once the box stores got involved mfg changed direction to produce two variations. One to uphold the quality market. One to uphold well lol...what this thread is about.

Now they cross mingle. Lady buys a bike from box store 1, it breaks, she goes to bike shop for repair. Ohhh she wont like the cost lol...Keep in mind she paid 80 bucks for the bike. But all in all sometimes you cannot please certain customers for whatever reason.

BlazingPedals

While that is true, there are so MANY cheap-o bikes sold by the department store chains that if everyone tried to buy a quality used bike instead of the dept store BSOs, they'd strip the supply.

EnjoyinTheRide

I do have a question....Much of this conversation is centered around Walmart.....However I have noticed that Kmart and Sears have different models. They seem to be higher priced than Walmart. They have Schwinn and other bikes that Walmart does not have.

Do you think these bikes are a (if it exists) a medium quality bike?? or are they cheap like walmart....

heres an example

https://www.kmart.com/schwinn-drifter...blockType=G31#

hanshananigan

Would love a pic of this brake so I can get a sense of what it looks like.

jefnvk

I dunno what Sears has (although presumably, the same as K-Mart), but the ones I've seen at K-Mart tend to be cheaper than Wal-Mart. The best around me seem to be at Meijer, a regional variant of Wal-Mart or K-Mart, but I wouldn't really consider any to be that much better.

I'd venture your link is just a more refined (read: shiny) version of this https://www.walmart.com/ip/27.5-Mong...071#about-item

Miele Man

I've walked through many department store BICYCLES SECTIONS and I've noticed that a well assembled properly adjusted bicycle on the rack is a relatively rare item. many times I 've seen quick releases closed the wrong way, quill stems inserted so that the MINIMUM INSERTION MARK is well ABOVE the headset nut. I've tried brakes where the brake lever went all the way to the handlebar and the wheel still turned easily. I've seen so many defectively assembled bikes in those stores that I've marveled that the stores aren't inundated with lawsuits. I've also pointed out to the manager that some of the bikes are unsafe to ride as is and I've offered to work part-time at the store in order to insure that there bicycles are safe to ride right from the store. The stores tell me they have someone who does the assembly.

I wonder if the lack of lawsuits due to injuries isn't because the bike gets used once, the rider has a scare because of defective assembly or adjustment and the bike is then relegated to an ornament somewhere?

IMHO, buying ANY department store bike, unless you know what to fix and how to fix it, is a crap shoot at the best of times.

Cheers

Fastfingaz

6,,,,,,,,,,what's your opinion of the quality of the tires do you feel they wear out fast????

EnjoyinTheRide

You know ive been debating since Spring of getting new tires for it. Obviously the rim size is standard as well as the tire size. But I wanted to keep riding them just to see how the bike would ride (as I would take it further distances) because if anything else broke I would assess the whole thing.

I went to my local bike store, to price out a Giant simple single and a Schwinn classic SS. I asked about new tires for the huffy, I was honest, I told him where I got it lol. He basically said the tires on these bikes (walmart etc) are hard and they dont ride smooth. He said better tires are softer with grip and give a smoother ride. He thought it would not be a bad idea.

That being said I looked at them today in fact (I was going to go ride now but its getting dark and gonna rain). They are still in good shape. I mostly ride on pavement, trails and light crush gravel. They have performed fine one exception. After the first year I put it in the basement and in the Spring the front tire was flat. It had a pinhole leak in the tube. I replaced that its been fine since.

My gut feeling is better tires will give it a smoother ride. Keep in mind its a simple cruiser and it doesnt have the cable and brakes derailleurs etc that I think are the cheapest parts of these types of bikes.

I will get better tires for it next year when I get the other bike.

EnjoyinTheRide

Lol its amazing how the internet now helps guide us in the direction were going lol. Here I buy this walmart bike above, I know what im getting, I know what my local bike shop has but once I go to the mfg websites, they show me what they have and now I get popups all over this computer with others like Sears/Kmart (and you are right they do have virtually the same around here) with models the others dont have. The schwinn from Kmart has lifetime warranty on the frame....1 year everything else..., they want 215 for it

thats what was throwing me off is the pricing....