Originally Posted by
PeteHski
I agree with your sentiment. Here in the UK there are places where you can buy a budget bike that is likely to have been assembled competently on site and ride reasonably well e.g. Halfords, Decathlon etc. But then there are also places where you can buy a budget bike that is likely to be complete and utter junk e.g. Toys R Us (before it went bust). The trouble is that a lot of buyers in that market don't have a clue what they are looking for. So it's mostly pot-luck whether or not they get decent value for their money.
This!
I wish I was competent enough to write this, but I've always thought it would be helpful if there was a sticky post as to what to look for or look out for in an inexpensive bike in General Cycling. Every time someone posts a question about that, they end up having to wade through a zillion unhelpful "don't buy" posts that really tell them nothing but to spend money they don't have and the inevitable trillionth tedious argument about dept store bikes.