Originally Posted by DesmoDog

I ordered it from Amazon, and just noticed that the price has gone up $40 since then too. Woo Hoo! That stuff usually works the other way for me. Now I can justify $40 in upgrades. ;-)

My wife and I just got back from it's first run. A whopping 6.4 miles, but far enough to get initial impressions. And, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I was afraid it would feel heavy but it really doesn't. I still found myself slowing down to let my wife catch up and braking on downhills so I didn't go by her. There was only one hill I felt like I was working hard to keep up with her so it's mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned.

Ok, if we're being honest I did feel like Pee Wee Herman on occassion but I'm ok with that...

So overall it's working out fine. There were a few downsides I'll probably address.

First, the brakes. As soon as the glaze got worn off the rims/pads they started squealing. I thought I had them toed pretty well but apparently not. I did wipe the dust off the front one at one point and it stopped the squealing for a while so maybe it needs a bit of break in too. The front brake works ok, the rear one... let's just say I won't be sliding the rear tire any time soon.

Noise. The flimsy fender braces let them rattle around more than they should IMHO. I think that's one reason the brakes were so annoying, they'd set off the front fender too? I dunno, I'll put some thought into improving those. I want to move the mounting point of the front one from the axle to the fork dropout anyway so maybe a two birds with one stone thing.

Minor stuff, but I am not a fan of the stock handgrips. I haven't looked for grips since the advent of twist shifters, two different lengths these days I see. I'm guessing that there's still a good selection out there though? It seems everything is twist shift now.

Twist shifter. It goes the wrong direction. It should twist forward for 1st and back for 7th in my feeble brain, something I'll need to get used to I suppose.

Gearing - I'm still infatuated with internal geared hubs. I was looking last night and it seems a five speed Sturmey with a drum brake would be the cat's meow for what I want. There are solutions to the vertical dropout situation. Hmm... maybe next winter.

I'm not in love with the bars but that's an easy change if I decide they have to go. The bars I put on my Rockhopper Comp in my attempt to make it useable might feel better, but they'd look wrong. Am I that guy? Form over function? Yeah with this bike I just may be.

So to sum it up, my impression so far is it feels better than I remember the cruisers of old feeling, and should work out great for what I bought it for. I kinda doubt I'd like it as much if it had been set up by a department store employee though. I'm assuming this one is typical (and other's comments indicates it is) so I'm guessing that mail order bikes will have issues the average Joe isn't going to be able to deal with with his phillips screw driver and adjustable wrench. I haven't cleaned up my "shop" yet, maybe I'll take a shot of the tools I used to put this thing together, I'm pretty sure it's a bigger pile than the "recommended tools" they list in the manual. Which I never read... ;-)