livedarklions

They're going to keep posting stuff that implies that no one who knows anything would ride a bike like yours. It's complete nonsense, of course, and the argument never ends. TBH, I don't even think they get how insulting they're being.

Riding well is the best revenge, and it sounds like you do a lot of that.

Ironfish653

Point me out a $200 bike that uses BB30 or Hollowgram. I'll wait.

All those crazy variations (Press-Fit, Outboard Bearings, Hollow Spindles, et. al,) came about in the last decade and a half as ways to reduce weight or friction on high-performance bikes, and /or addressing assembly issues inherent in mass-produced monocoque carbon frames


Bargain bikes, (if they're not Ashtabulas) pretty much all use 68mm BSA-threaded, JIS Square-taper BBs. It's a design that has been standardized for nearly 50 years; and come in (retail) price range from $10 no-name to $150 Phill Wood or White Industries.
It takes time to re-invent the wheel, and time costs money. Everyone knows what a 68mm BSA Square Taper is; it's just a matter of how cheap you can make it.

Privolous

Canada's Dorel sold Pacific cycles, schwinn, mongoose, cannondale, etc to some guy in the Netherlands in December. what's in Walmart stock could be the last of the cheap bicycles we ever see . Nobody knows what the Netherlands guy is planning to do with his shut down Chinese factories

petition is pointless

UniChris

I'm pretty sure those are just labels to put on things that are manufactured under contract.

Buying the labels doesn't mean that "guy" bought any factories.

And even if he did, there are plenty of others who can fill Walmart orders at whatever price/quality Walmart purchasing dictates. So what if we see "Ozark Trail" bikes now.

Didn't what is effectively Giant spend years making stuff for other brands only to finally come up with their own name to market halfway decent stuff under?

LV2TNDM

Just because the manufacturers don't necessarily own the factories doesn't mean they aren't the ones specing the product. It's Dorel's or Pacific's product managers developing and specifying the product. The Asian factories simply bulid them to the mfgr's spec.

That said, someone above essentially said, "Target/WalMart doesn't spec the bikes..." This is technically true (as is my statement above), but WalMart works VERY CLOSELY with manufacturers in determining spec and price point. They "collaborate" on reaching certain price points. WalMart influences spec, color and price point. They're so big that they require this. Any manufacturer who doesn't "play ball" loses the account and millions in sales. So the manufacturers spec per big box requirements. They're both complicit, but ultimately the manufacturer is responsible.

Which is why a petition like this is circulating.

That said, the automobile market doesn't rely on the makers to provide safe products. It's a highly-regulated industry. This petition makes the argument for regulating the bicycle market. Now I realize I'm fanning the flames here, but if the mass market cannot provide safe bicycles, then perhaps it needs safety regulations like the auto market. "Unsafe at Any Speed," recently celebrating 50 years, is responsible for a lot of consumer safety regulations that have saved millions of lives. Ralf Nader showed how when you leave an industry's safety up to the private industry, they don't place safety at the top. Without regulation, Americans were being sold death traps.

And Peter Robison's recent "Flying blind : the 737 MAX tragedy and the fall of Boeing" exposes the peril of undermined regulation. It is an account of how airline safety regulation has eroded through budget cuts and regulatory capture. The result is an inherently flawed airplane whose design was the result of financial decisions over engineering good sense. Up until recently, airline regulation ensured excellent engineering and implementation.

The petition may indeed be "useless," but is begs an important question about the bicycle mass market and industry.

morecommas

It is amazing that bikes have become disposables. I'm always reminded of this when working on something as humble as a late 80s mountain bike that, even if it was used and abused in its day, still has many, many miles to offer.

grant40

I have seen some Walmart bikes that have been ridden almost daily for several years with little maintenance and still are able to ride. If someone is getting good use out of it, then I am not going to be a snob and hate them for not having a better bike.

jon c. 

There were some people who liked their Yugos. That didn't mean Yugos weren't a failed attempt at building a reasonably reliable automobile.

No one hates people who ride bikes from Walmart. They hate the fact that a lot of folks will have poor experiences with such bikes. Of course not all of them will, but with cheap, poorly assembled goods there are guaranteed to be a lot of post sale issues.

Had a good friend who rode a WalMart bike for a few years until it fell apart. Given the low price, he thought he got his money's worth. But he appreciates the ride on the bike he has now a lot more. About the same cost on the used market. There are better alternatives than Wal Mart but he was unaware of them when he started. Now he has a bike he likes more that will last longer.

ussprinceton

I find superior bikes on CraigsList for the price of WalMart bikes

UniChris

At the least, I'm finding fixing up craigslist bikes a great learning experience.

I'm basically 2 for 3, first and last purchases have been great, middle one (which was actually two) more of a learning experience than a result.

But I think my net investment is $140 in bikes and around $80 in tools, for two riders accommodated and a ton of knowledge gained.

Ironfish653

All well and good, provided you have a pretty deep CL, and a good way to get to where those “superior” bikes are.
In my area, setting the filter to “$200 or less” gets you about 110 bikes; 5 of them meet your criteria, 4 are early ‘00s ‘major brand’ MTBs, 26’ers that are about 8/10, and one ‘92 Cannondale road bike that’s a complete, but well-worn 6/10.
Half of what’s left are late model Department Store grade MTBs and 7-speed beach cruisers, the rest are kids bikes and rusty junk.
oh, and a 70’s Peugeot mixtie with a Scott AT-4, and dry-rotted tires that they’re asking $200 for

The main issues with buying off the used market is that you’ve got to have the knowledge to identify a “good” bike from a few pictures and basic description; size it, also from that same description; and then have the time, cash, and transport available to get it before someone else does.
Not everyone has that, or is willing to put all those elements together, for the sake of a $200 bike, so they buy one from the store.

Leinster

You have the knowledge, skills and tools to make those used bikes work. The average shopper buying a bike from a BigBox retailer has none of those things. At least if they buy from Walmart, they might get their money back if it falls apart.

SkinGriz

737 max. Argh…

If an airplane is pitching up into a stall, a pilots instinct should be to lower AOA by pushing the nose down. Exactly what the pilots in the crashed 737s tried to do.

What a mess.

grant40

I got this bike at Walmart to use as a beater bike. the rear wheel was extremely out of true, the chainrings were warped, the bottom bracket would come loose after each ride, no matter how hard I tightened it, and the brakes didn't work as there was friction in the cables. I did end up putting the rear brake from it on my Masi singlespeed at it was the only one that I could find that would work, and it works just fine. The headset on the Walmart bike had no grease and was overly tightened. I feel like Walmart bikes can go a long way if they are tuned and properly setup before getting ridden. This one would have to need a new bottom bracket, cables, grease, and a wheel truing to ride just fine

Jax Rhapsody

The bikes today, five years ago, ten years ago at walmart are no different. These bikes change so slow, they barely do. The only difference is it's rarer to find disc brake bikes. That one Mongoose with mags on it has them optional. Cranbrooks got a third redesign. You can still walk in walmart and buy the same Roadmaster Granite Peak, and Next Break Point from twenty years ago. And the same Cranbrook(basically). Excluding bmx bikes; ten years ago, there were still bikes with side pulls on it.

Jax Rhapsody

Is that why Walmart has a no questions asked return policy on bicycles?

hevysrf

I've worked for a contractor doing commercial refrigeration for Walmart, and they have a strong concern for product liability, perhaps stronger than product quality.
In my area, they use a contractor who hires the assemblers, I guess to reduce cost and push liability one step further away.

sloppy12

Ha I Had two yugos and a buddy who raced them. they were alot of fun to just beat on.

livedarklions

Weird that your list of concerns seems to have no overlap with the actual content of the petition, which doesn't mention anything about safety at all or regulation. This petition is carefully crafted so as not to gore the ox of bike shop owners who don't want safety regulation any more than Walmart does.

UniChris

Huh? More like the opposite, discs are all over the place - if I filter on what's available to go pick up at my local Walmart, anything over $200 is disc, while those under are rim, with the solitary exception of a $248 "downhilll style" mountain bike the spring fork of which no doubt comes with a stern warning not to ride down any actual mountains.

In terms of actual product line evolution, the rim brake Schwinn Ranger has been discontinued (though there's still floor stock in some stores) and replaced by the Sidewinder with cable-actuated discs.

But changes, particularly in the lower tier $100 class can also be more subtle - you were responded to a post talking about details of bottom brackets, not sure you can see those very readily in the store.

UniChris

Wow, just found a big box tier (granted ship-to-store) mountain bike I'd actually be excited about.

The Kent Airflex actually comes without a spring-loaded ballast sandbag up front! Granted that says little about the durability, which for anything in this "better big box" price tier is questionable. But I like that they've built a simpler bike without anti-features (now if only I could get my friction shifters back)

Chances are more likely that anything along these lines I actually buy would be a surviving 1990's MTB... and probably better for it. But I like that someone is still making a simple, rigid, "campus" mountain bike

(But "airflex"? Talk about a terrible name for a bike, it's like someone stole something off the name ideas sheet for home gym equipment)

2old

I don't perceive this problem very well. When my children were young many, many years ago there were only big box bikes for them (if there were better ones, I wasn't aware of them). Yet we rode together constantly with neither mishaps nor mechanical problems that couldn't be fixed on the spot and the bikes were easy to maintain. One bike even lasted through four kids, getting new paint and whatever other components were worn each time, then was given, still functional, to another family.

grant40

Yes I find it interesting that this this has side pull road brakes but longer instead of the side pull mountain bike brakes that come in 2 peices (I don't know what they are called). Definitely more of a hybrid and NOT a mountain bike.

grant40

My friend's sister rode this 13 year old Walmart bike every day almost and it had no real mechanical problems besides the rear "shock" getting busted. The only other thing that Is wrong with it is it is a heavy, boat anchor of a bike. The seat angle is down to her not knowing about seat positions.



A lot of it comes down to how well the person working at the store assembled the bike and how well it was treated during shipping.

CliffordK

Car manufacturers have also had their growing pains. There is a reason why Fiat and Yugo took a hiatus from selling vehicles in the USA.

Part of the problem is not just Walmart, but also the manufacturers. Including big brands like Shimano.

There are certain models of Shimano parts that I absolutely refuse to use.

However, I also know that one can't install a $1000 Ultegra groupset on a $200 bicycle. Still, I have to wonder if there is a minimum standard of parts they could enforce (without other no-name brands just replacing them).