I think what we are seeing is the maturing of Chinese manufacturing, which is where most of the Wal-Mart bikes are made. They are rapidly closing the quality and design gap on Taiwan and Korea, although they have a way to go to catch Japan. China today is where Japan was in, say the late 50's or very early 60's - trying to change from a lowball producer of cheap goods to a supplier of good quality and innovative design. They are a bit handicapped as to the latter, though, since many of their goods are designed by the foreign companies that market them.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Hoauton, TX
Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca> wrote: Well, one summer in 1982, my Raleigh Grand Prix was stolen and i needed a beater bike for 2 months, after which i would be back at college and riding my Sekai 2500. So I broke down and bought a $25 huffy to replace my raleigh grand prix.
I resolved to take it apart and rebuild it up and tune it so well that it would be fun to ride, although 10 lbs heavier than it needed to be. I quickly found out why a $25 bike is hopeless.
- brakes were soft steel, every time you braked hard they went out of adjustment. I mean EVERYTHING went out, the calipers bent, the stops bent, even the levers or the cable stretched. I could never get them with 1/4" of the rim and keep them there.
- rims were steel, difficult to true and braking performance was poor.
- tires were horrible 60 psi original equipment.
- handlebars had extension levers, which I removed. I wrapped the bars with rubber from a burst tire, including wrapping the brakes to make cheapo pseudo-hoods
- saddle was awful, par for the course.
- tires barely held air
- hub cones could not be adjusted properly, and there was something wrong with the headset that couldn't be fixed.
Now, i didn't buy the $108 schwinn at target, but in inflationary terms the brand-new $108 schwinn is the same price as my used 1982 Huffy. However, I see the brakes are higher quality aluminum, the rims are aluminum, and i did immediately find nonstandard or cheesy parts. Granted, i did not bring a caliper to check everything.
My point is, we must be at some sort of zenith for $100 department store bikes, and I expect that in a few years these bikes will be costing $200 or more, after the US dollar gets done falling.
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA