obeachron

We spent two weeks in Stowe, VT last May and instead of renting bikes, we bought a ladies Granite Peak, and a Mens 700C Mongoose Hotshot. We had called the Bike Dept at Wal-mart's a few nights earlier and the person in charge of the bikes said they didn't have any Granite Peaks assembled, but that night the contracting company was coming to fill some orders and he'd ask them to assemble one for us. No credit card, etc, just a casual conversation.
When we arrived at the Berlin VT store 2 days later, there was a GP all set to go, and I chose a Mongoose Hotshot and asked for some air in the tires, and off the clerk/dept manager went. When he returned my wife asked for air in her tires, and by the time he returned, the air in the Hotshot was gone, so I picked out another bike from the top tier of bikes (scary) and down one came. In order to get the bikes into the rental SUV, I had to remove the Hotshot front tire, no problem.
When we got to our rental place, I rode the Hotshot around in the parking lot, all functions worked great, all adjustments were good, except I did a tight circle and felt the bearings in the front wheel move, and after feeling how wobby the wheel was I knew I had a repair to make. I did bring my bike tools on the plane, not my best tools though, and left them checked in with the luggage.
After I removed the overtightened bolts on the wheel, I then struggled to get the locking nut off, what I brought was the short 2 ended thin wrenches from Park Tool, and I had no leverage. After getting all the nuts off, Lo and behold, there were 10 or 11 (I forget) loose ball bearings with a slight amount of grease on them. Very surprised to not see a BB retainer. I did the wheel rebuild, using the Red Devil grease I had brought, and for the next two weeks no repairs were needed for either bike. Very surprising. I never touched the Granite Mountain. The Mongoose Hotshot was a light bike and fun to ride. The Hotshot could have used a few more gears, but that is not the bike's fault, it is what it is. We dropped both bikes off at a Goodwill Store on the way to the airport, and the guys who took the bikes from us were shocked to see 2 new bikes being donated.
I had previously checked CL in the area, but the bikes were either too cheap or too expensive, and the people I wrote to never responded, So we went the route of Wal-Mart. I guess this is an endorsement of an alternative way to get bikes to use on a great bike trail when you are flying into an area.

obeachron

P.S. The rental bikes were ruled out as the cost too high and the operating hours of the rental shops too inconvenient, We spent our second week in the Berkshires riding and geocaching the wonderful Ashuwillticut Rail Trail. The only two days we didn't bike was when it really rained hard.
The Granite Peak bike cost $88.00 and the Mongoose Hotshot was $99.00 + tax.

fietsbob

Wally's bikes most redeeming feature is their willingness
to give you your money back, If you keep the receipt.

when, after something breaks, you return it.

to then go shop for a bike which very lowest cost is not the primary goal..

Papa Tom

I did the same thing when I went to visit my Mom in Florida several years back. I had planned to ride the Pinellas County Trail, but I didn't want to waste money on renting a bike, so I bought a Walmart mountain bike for $59 and figured I'd just keep it at Mom's after that. The Pinellas ride never happened, but I did get to ride around Port Richey a bit. That bike sure was a piece of junk. Had I known I was only going to ride the neighborhood, I'd have bought a simple cruiser. The gears and brakes on this thing were horrible, and nothing I could do with the limited tools I had would make much of a difference.

In the end, I gave the bike to the custodian at my Mom's church thrift shop. I hope he didn't get killed on it.

wheelreason

Are we really complaining about the quality of a $59 "mountain" bike?

Papa Tom

No. I am telling a story. This is what people used to do before we all had our heads up our own asses.

cpach

I actually like these kinds of reviews. I wish there was more pressure on the big box stores to market bikes that are functional. A guy on youtube KevCentral does good reviews on big box bikes. If you know what you're doing you can probably find something with parts that will work acceptably if set up correctly, but a lot of the bikes try to have tons of features like dual suspension etc but barely manage to manage to brake to a stop.

HillRider

Several years ago my bike club was contacted by a couple from out of town that was coming to Pittsburgh for a business trip and wanted to rent a couple of bikes to ride the local Rail-Trails while they were here and asked for some route recommendations. As membership chairman, their e-mail came to me. There were no convenient rental shops near them and they had proposed just what you did as an alternative, i.e. buy a couple of Big Box bikes and discard them after the trip.

After determining what size bikes they needed I offered to lend them my Trek 7000 MTB and my daughters Trek 720 Hybrid. They were very grateful and accepted my offer. I refused payment and they bought us a very nice dinner the evening they returned the bikes. So, contacting a local club may get you the use of far better bikes at little to no cost.

obeachron

I should mention: I picked the Mongoose Hotshot as it has no suspension and just the 6 speeds. I figured what can go wrong, and except for the front wheel bearings being tightened before they were settled in, nothing really happened to the bike. If they had a ladies Hotshot we would have bought that, but they didn't, unsure if one is even manufactured. I didn't think of contacting a local bike group, very good idea as I'm sure the Berkshires have many bike groups with the wonderful bike trail and rolling hills they have there. Unsure about Stowe VT though.

Unapomer

There is a website devoted to the bikes being sold at Walmart, Target, etc. etc. Check it out!
www.bigboxbikes.com ? Index page

Jdmesa0925

👍 😂

pontius

veganbikes

You resurrected a thread from 2018 for that? Yeeesh.

pontius

you take time to read it and respond? That makes two people with heads up their asses.

cb400bill

That is quite enough.

Thread closed.