[834905]

exactly. I've been saying it for years that all that stuff is just completely unnecessary fluff. it makes the bikes less for the sake of something flashy to sell more of them. box stores should be where inexpensive, functional bicycles should be the norm. no suspension. 2" wide pavement tires, basic (but durable) steel parts, components with common standards so they can be easily replaced when they break or wear out, no shitty plastic or pot metal, singlespeeds or 1x7 drivetrains, thumbshifters, etc. require a modicum of quality control so the frames are at least straight, intact, and protected from rust. assemble the goddamn things properly.

but of course, if they do that and bicycles are suddenly not disposable anymore, then they won't sell one or more to the same family every year.

most department store bikes bought are for kids, because of the mentality that bicycles are toys. of the adults who buy these, most probably never get ridden outside of the rare camping trips the family takes. they get thrown in the trash, and eventually homeless folks wind up with them - at which point they probably get more use than they ever did since they were built.

Excuse me sir, but I ride 85 miles a year (average) mostly in my neighborhood, and I am NOT riding a bike with only one gear and a rigid fork. Do you have any idea how bumpy the sidewalks in my neighborhood are? They haven’t been maintained in like 3 years.

 

[Harold]

Excuse me sir, but I ride 85 miles a year (average) mostly in my neighborhood, and I am NOT riding a bike with only one gear and a rigid fork. Do you have any idea how bumpy the sidewalks in my neighborhood are? They haven’t been maintained in like 3 years.

HTFU, ya baby

 

[127.0.0.1]

"The second problem is that bikes, especially in urban areas, are a key tool in the fight against climate change"

Well, there goes just about any semblance of taking this article seriously. If only they wouldn't make cheap bikes, more people would buy and ride them all the time everywhere and turn in their cars, then we humans could start controlling the weather!! Good lord. Go ahead, keep making climate change the cornerstone of every possible opinion, plea, and action. Two hundred years from now when your pollutants go down .00000034 percent, you'll know you accomplished something - right before the asteroid hits.

Then the 'evil corporations' bit....this woman is a nutter.

CONSUME

above, only cargo

below, only tankers

 

[291748]

Then the people that buy BSOs could buy them from a shop and have all those benefits you mentioned,

In addition to being subjected to Ye Olde Relentless Upsell, cuz who doesn't love that?

 

[Blue Dot Trail]

These are perfectly fine for what they are intended for. Most ppl just want a cheap bike to ride around, not a “pro’ grade bike (like we ride). When guys I work with ask me what my mountain bike cost, they freak out. “How f#@kin much?!?!” This is why Walmart sells cheap crappy bikes.

 

[BadgerOne]

CONSUME
View attachment 1965332

above, only cargo

below, only tankers
View attachment 1965333

If all the cheap big box store bikes present in this chain disappear tomorrow, their space will just get filled up with other cheap imported crap and the materials required to make and ship them. It's a zero-sum game.

 

[REZEN]

you'd think that, with all the interest that the Walton family has in cycling, they'd try a little more. think: Bentonville, Viathon Bikes, etc.

For Fs sake don't buy a Viathon. Look into the headset frame problems.....

 

[milehi]

I put myself through school building those bikes in the late 80s/early 90's. I'd already been mountain biking for seven years and always cobbled together my own bikes like the Schwinn Continental single speed with newsboy bars I built uo at age 12. I could build four of five an hour at $5 each. I'd even correct other builders who installed the bar ends straight up or put the fork on backwards.

I also built swingsets, furniture, lawn mowers and every single thing you see on the floor that comes shipped in a box. It was really good money for a teenager back then.

 

[WHALENARD]

I've got a buddy that builds bikes for a living, I'm assuming for big box stores. Owns a house outside of Phoenix, has an M3 that he rases on track, several other really nice VWs on top of being a rabbit RC nut. Assuming you can make decent money doing it somehow or he has a bunch of money from his previous career, I don't know.

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

 

[milehi]

Number of people on this website who will donate enough to keep a few bikes rolling rather than spending the $$ on a color-matching cushy thumb lever for their $400 seatpost is somewhere close to zero. Number of people who will virtue signal over the issue is significantly higher.

I quit selling anything worth less than a hundred bucks and donate them to the local bicycle kitchen. Last donation was a bunch of top shelf shifters, posts and stems. And a hub. All Race Face and XT.

 

[yourrealdad]

These are perfectly fine for what they are intended for. Most ppl just want a cheap bike to ride around, not a “pro’ grade bike (like we ride). When guys I work with ask me what my mountain bike cost, they freak out. “How f#@kin much?!?!” This is why Walmart sells cheap crappy bikes.

I think the issue is that a more reliable bike can be made and sold at a relatively cheap price, like the WBR bikes. But making planned obsolescence style bikes is just easier or habit.

I think a lot of us forget what a "cheap" bike is. I have people all the time ask me to find them an mtb. I ask what their budget is and they say "A couple hundred bucks, no more than $500". I usually tell them to save up until they have $1000 and then I can find them something worth spending money on, because honestly, rarely is it worth it until then.

BTW most of the time they never do because it is mind boggling to them to spend $1000 on a BIKE. They end up with some crappy bike and I end up fixing it up for them so its rideable.

 

[Coal-Cracker]

Growing up poor, if it hadn't been for department store bikes, I wouldn't have had a bike.

Those bikes fill a need. When I was a 6 year old, I didn't care that my bike came from Sears.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

 

[chiefsilverback]

Growing up poor, if it hadn't been for department store bikes, I wouldn't have had a bike.

Those bikes fill a need. When I was a 6 year old, I didn't care that my bike came from Sears.

I don’t know how far back you’re talking, but it would be interesting to know how much a department store bike cost 30 years ago and how that compared to ‘real’ bikes of the same era. Once upon a time every bike had a quill stem so there was no discernible difference, no bikes had indexed shifting, or clutch derailleurs, or hydraulic disc brakes etc… is the reality that today’s ‘big box’ bikes are what everyone would have been happy with a couple of decades ago?

 

[PDKL45]

Cheap bikes don't have to be all that bad, you just need to remove all the surplus crap and use materials that add weight. Take the following Korean bad boy for example, US $294.66, 18.9kg/41.6 lb of love, pure love, and built to withstand a nuclear blast. Some local guys mod them heavily with handlebar bracing and huge racks to carry refrigerators and washing machines around at the markets, although that's quite old fashioned these days. Still, a lot of older guys get around on these and you see some of them that have to be 30-40 years old, with technology a good few generations out of date just keeping on keeping on with a few minor repairs that cost a few dollars in the local bike shops. They're the type of bikes that Surlys want to be when they grow up.

They do away with all the cheap suspension, cassettes and anything that's not absolutely necessary (that rack is essential if you're out in the country and need to transport a pig or two to market) and use cheap but really robust materials (that are incredibly heavy).

26 STANDARD|CITY|LIFE STYLE|스타일|자전거|삼천리자전거 (samchuly.co.kr)

 

[J.B. Weld]

Growing up poor, if it hadn't been for department store bikes, I wouldn't have had a bike.

Those bikes fill a need. When I was a 6 year old, I didn't care that my bike came from Sears.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

Same here. Though I wouldn't exactly consider ourselves poor back then we were definitely lower middle class and my first 3 or 4 bikes were total $hit. I was happy to have them and I still love cycling today. It really isn't about the bike.

 

[Harold]

Cheap bikes don't have to be all that bad, you just need to remove all the surplus crap and use materials that add weight. Take the following Korean bad boy for example, US $294.66, 18.9kg/41.6 lb of love, pure love, and built to withstand a nuclear blast. Some local guys mod them heavily with handlebar bracing and huge racks to carry refrigerators and washing machines around at the markets, although that's quite old fashioned these days. Still, a lot of older guys get around on these and you see some of them that have to be 30-40 years old, with technology a good few generations out of date just keeping on keeping on with a few minor repairs that cost a few dollars in the local bike shops. They're the type of bikes that Surlys want to be when they grow up.

They do away with all the cheap suspension, cassettes and anything that's not absolutely necessary (that rack is essential if you're out in the country and need to transport a pig or two to market) and use cheap but really robust materials (that are incredibly heavy).

26 STANDARD|CITY|LIFE STYLE|스타일|자전거|삼천리자전거 (samchuly.co.kr)

that thing is in the same family as the Buffalo Bike I linked above. which is in the same family as the Dutch type transportation bikes.

They absolutely fill a need. The problems happen when this is the kind of bike someone needs, but they are convinced that they need "24 speeds" and full suspension and flashy stickers everywhere by the marketing departments of whatever Huffy/Next/Walgoose conglomerate they get roped in by.

 

[Philco]

I enjoy watching "carbon fiber mountain bike cracked" videos on YouTube and pondering how long Taiwan will keep fixing them. What was built to fail is actually carbon fiber mountain bikes that won't be around in 20 years. Carbon Fiber is not a forever material. F-35 can't even carry external fuel tanks or weapons without cracking. 25mm gun shock alone is cracking them.

Just ordered a airfork for my 22 year old Specialized Enduro I am refreshing. Its aluminum

 

[Bacon Fat]

marketing departments of whatever Huffy/Next/Walgoose conglomerate they get roped in by.

Kinda like how we get roped in to the latest wheel size, rim size, fork offset. Everyone one wants the latest and coolest looking bike, even the people that only afford a walmart bike. Need has nothing to do with bike purchases in America. They are just toys to almost all buyers

 

[richj8990]

I don’t know how far back you’re talking, but it would be interesting to know how much a department store bike cost 30 years ago and how that compared to ‘real’ bikes of the same era. Once upon a time every bike had a quill stem so there was no discernible difference, no bikes had indexed shifting, or clutch derailleurs, or hydraulic disc brakes etc… is the reality that today’s ‘big box’ bikes are what everyone would have been happy with a couple of decades ago?

The real question is how much the average 'mountain' bike cost 30 years ago and what components it had compared with today's box bikes. I went to a vintage trek site just now, the 1991 Trek 1000 was $485 ($900 adjusted for inflation) and didn't really even list the components. It didn't look like a mountain bike at all. Let's fast forward to 2002 just to get better internet data instead of archived microfilm that's a bit annoying to read sideways.

2002 Trek Y26 (full-suspension) $390 (around $700 now): 3x8-speed drivetrain, rim brakes, 26x1.95 tires, 60mm fork. They say it weighs 31 lbs. Whatever. My wife had a 2007 Specialized FS that was very similar to this and that was 50 lbs. And you don't want to hit that heavy of a steel or cromoly bike during a crash, and trust me the crashes with skinny 26" tires and rim brakes will be inevitable (hers was 24"). Steel hurts 20 times as much as aluminum on your shin, especially hitting 50 lbs of it. Feels like someone hit you with a baseball bat. The Y26 certainly was a real mountain bike, but...

Let's see what $400 and $700 can buy now:
$385 will get you something I had between 2016 and 2019, no need to name the brand because the Chinese label it about 20 different ways on different sites. It went from 3x7 to 3x8, maybe because I complained to them about it when the freewheel axle broke. Or 1000 others complained too. Mechanical disk brakes, again as above 26x1.95 tires (hated them), 80mm fork (lasted 500 miles before it seized up and went to 25mm travel). 33 lbs is not a bad weight. It was fine for gravel and level singletrack. I really, really hated the 26" geometry. I also got it for $269, it went up a bit lol. You'll probably want to ride the Trek above instead of this, if you don't mind out of control crashes (at least this bike had controlled crashes!).

$700 --- Trek Marlin 5, 2x8/9 drivetrain, hydraulic brakes, 26, 27.5 and 29 options, Suntour XCT 100 fork. 31 lbs. Compare that to the Y26 above; if you upgrade the XCT coil fork to air (Raidon or equivalent), to me the hydraulic brakes on a hardtail are going to win out on the rim brakes on a full-suspension cheap bike. And I'll bet the whole price of the bike it weighs a lot less than the Y26. So once you adjust for inflation, the modern box bike is going to probably be a little bit more attractive than an inflation equivalent 20-year old mountain bike, besides $200-300 for the fork upgrade. Although you'll want to show off the Y26 in your garage to the Enduro Bros just because.

 

[Kelly Parker]

I ran a bike share for 4 years. The first bikes I received used derailleurs and v brakes. Made a lot of money maintaining those bikes. Upgraded to internally geared bikes with drum brakes. Maintenance cost went down 75% in first year. Cost 2 times as much to buy. (Worth every penny In my opinion). After 2 years even these bikes needed parts replaced at double the costs for the nice parts. Could almost buy a new cheap bike for cost of replacement parts. Rental bikes can’t make money with a quality product without new cash every 2 years (frames start to break steel parts rust in aluminum parts and so on). Bottom line if you want more people riding bikes and less cars, the cheap bike is the only option for people with less income or just starting biking. Put some nice parts on a Walmart bike and 150 dollar bike becomes a 250 dollar bike and will not leave the store with less people riding bikes. Maybe less choice is what the mechanics want. Walmart sells what the consumer can pay. In my experience with bike shops they don’t like to sell low cost bike (35% markup on a 250 bike is not worth there time). My hope is maybe a solution can be found without government getting involved. Repairable parts are great if you can afford them on an entry level bike. Just a real life experience.