| Sad Story: was Schwinn Sidewinder from Walmart
Once upon a time, Schwinn bikes were incredibly durable and low maintenance.
You couldn't break them. We mountain biked the hilly trails east of Kansas
City long before mountain biking was officially invented. My friends Sears
or Huffy bikes were always falling apart.
But like so many products before, labels that meant quality over many
decades can be turned into big profits by slapping them onto junk.
The manufacturers of Department store bikes know the average cheap bike is
ridden about 75 miles in its lifetime. So if you design a bike that will
last 750, you are designing it for 10 times the average lifespan. I've seen
this with the bearings, cranks, etc. coming apart for the rare DS bike that
sees real use.
On the other hand, I've ridden at least 7,500 miles on my latest quality
bike. I've replaced one spoke. Speaking of maintenance, people obsess
about the few hours a year I spend fixing flats (I used to too, to be
honest) but will spend a few hours a month cleaning their cars. Cars get
dirty, bikes get flats, it is the way.
What saddens me is the masses think spending one or two car payments on a
bike is silly, so they buy heavy, poor handling, braking, shifting bikes;
which only reinforce the illusion that bikes are crap in general.
Saddest yet are these rules are applied in spades to kids bikes, because
they spend even less on a bike the kid will outgrow. So kids learn the myth
from early childhood. That's why you see parents hauling their little kids
in their cars to the park, where they drive around little electric cars.
I have often wondered how such people reconcile news about the Tour de
France, where cyclists zip all over France in two weeks, but somehow the act
like riding your bike 5 miles to work is like crossing the Andes.
<datakoll@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1104954365.967185.308660@c13g2000cwb.googlegr oups.com...
> keep a log.
> come back after 1000 miles
> and after yawl take the hubs apart to check bearings and cones.
>
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