How to Build a Road Bike Without Going Broke

"Jim Zeigler" (jimzeigler) 08/14/2015 at 12:20 • Filed to: None

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Is a cyclist not entitled to the sweat of his own brow? ‘No!’ says the broke man, ‘It is a hobby for the rich.’ ‘No!’ says the automotive advocate, ‘Lanes are the property of the motorized vehicle.’ ‘No!’ says the sexually-insecure male, ‘They wear garments that clearly display their junk.’ I rejected these answers; instead I chose something different. I chose something insufferable. I chose… road cycling.

Road cycling has its detractors, and rightfully so. It’s a sport that attracts dentists and triathlon participants, which are groups that should be considered with suspicion and fear. But if you want to go road cycling, you don’t have to step into a bike shop and have your credit card reamed to the absolute limit. Want to have some mechanical fun while building a thoroughbred steed for a fraction of the cost of retail? Build your own road bike.

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Frame choice is perhaps the most crucial and important part of a road bike build. Since we’re going the budget route, we’ll throw out the high-end options like cabron fibre & titanium and focus on the two most common frame materials: steel and aluminum.

Since the 1990’s, the frame material of choice for the major road bike manufacturers has been aluminum. It’s light, rigid, and easy to mass produce. “Rigid” is the key clause here: these bikes can beat you up. Even with the addition of a carbon fork, the stiffness of aluminum on many frames can be a bit unforgiving. That’s not necessarily the case with many newer frames like Specialized’s Secteur and Cannondale’s Synapse, but these specifically use relaxed geometry to circumvent the natural rigidity of bauxite’s baby.

Aluminum bikes also have haters that say they aren’t “lifetime bikes” because of the fragility of the thin tubing and the fatigue life of the welds. Old school bike guys like to talk about how certain frames would bend and pop back like a Coke can when you pushed down with your thumb in certain areas. Anecdotally, this is true; I like Cannondales, and both the CAAD3 and the CAAD4 I’ve owned have experienced issues with cracked welds and toptubes that dent when you frown at them, respectively. However, these have been the two bikes I’ve loved the most, and if you can find one in great shape, don’t be scared off.

“Steel is real,” bearded road cyclists like to say. And in many ways, it offers myriad benefits over aluminum. Let’s get this out of the way: if you care about weight above all other factors, I don’t recommend a steel bike. Thicker tubing is (typically) necessary in frame applications. But if you’re going to be commuting on rougher streets and riding in a non-competitive setting, they’re pretty damn great. Steel is more resilient than aluminum to fatigue, and many people say it has a “springy” feeling due to the material’s ability to comply with both power input and road irregularities.

With that said, finding a quality steel frame around $300 is difficult. You’re basically limited to old Italian builders (which may or may not have compatibility issues with newer components, i.e. 126mm rear wheel spacing vs. the modern 130mm), flights of fancy by modern manufacturers like the Allez Steel, and conduit-tubing Chinese frames that double as dumbbells. Bargains are out there though, and worth a look if you have the chance.

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Let the holy war ensue. There are three major component manufacturers: Shimano, SRAM, and Campagnolo. Cyclists pledge allegiance to these companies like Ford, Chevy, and MOPAR. Full disclosure: I’m a SRAM guy. But like religion, most people end up adhering to the standards that they start out on.

Shimano is the name most familiar to you, and the company’s ubiquity in fishing reels and bike parts probably means you’ve touched something they’ve made in your lifetime. Shimano makes parts for everything: downhill rigs, offshore reels, and cheap-ass Walmart bikes. They make some of the highest (and lowest) end bike parts around. If you’re building a road bike, you can go as cheap as their plasticky 2300 series or ball out and get their electronically shifted Dura-Ace or Ultegra groups. For road bikes, the shifters typically combine the brake and shift levers into a system colloquially known as “brifters”. The sweet spot for riders on a budget is the Tiagra lineup. It’s 10-speed (read: relatively modern & available), cheap, and looks pretty good. It also has fairly positive shifting performance, in my experience.

SRAM is a bit more up-budget, with the street price for their entry-level Apex group bumping the $450 mark. It’s also impressively badass. Where Shimano integrates their brake and shifting levers, SRAM designates the longer, more-important slab of metal to the rim clampers. Shifting this drivetrain is much easier to experience than describe, but basically you push the same lever to both downshift and upshift. It also has a much more mechanically-direct feel to shifting; without getting into details, Shimano and Campagnolo use varying amounts of cable pull to yank the derailleur into action, while SRAM setups pull the same amount for every shift. Highly recommended for those who like manual transmissions.

Campagnolo, or “Campy”, is the oddball for North America. Their parts are more expensive, specific to their particular brand, and have a “prestige” factor that seems to ignore their relative cheapness of build. My experience with Campy has been with their cheapest line, Veloce. It works pretty damn well. Veloce uses two levers like Shimano’s system, but keeps the downshift button at thumb’s reach instead of devoting it to a paddle or brake lever. It kinda feels crappy compared to SRAM though, and the Italian heritage kinda goes downhill when you realize that the levers feel like injection-molded plastic spoons and see a “Made in Romania” sticker that they forgot to remove. I’d avoid it, but you don’t necessarily need to if you like the look and feel.

Any of these groupsets can be found on eBay for $350-450. But INCOMING PROTIP: due to the current value of the US dollar to the strange Illuminati currency known as the Euro, you can get any of these – Tiagra, Apex, or Veloce – for under $400 from overseas retailers like Ribble or Wiggle. That’s cheaper than you can find them used, in many cases. Shipping is often free, but can take significantly longer than getting parts from Taiwan or here in the States. Then again, if you’re taking the time to build a bike, you can wait a couple weeks for derailleurs to arrive.

Sidenote: save money by using cheap-ass brakes with good-ass pads. Most dual-pivot systems used these days are more than adequate for stopping the bike, even if they’re off-brand or unbranded. The main difference is weight, which you probably won’t notice much on your first build. Whichever route you go, steel or aluminum, your bike will probably be somewhere around 18-20lbs. That’s just fine.

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Road cyclists are quick to extol the virtues of hand-built wheels. It’s true; they feel great. But what doesn’t feel great is selling plasma for rent, or putting your dialysis machine on eBay. A hand-built set of custom wheels starts around the $400 mark with labor, and that shit hurts. The bargain sites are your friend in this instance.

Check Craigslist. They’ve been gracious enough to include a “Bike Parts – By Owner” section. Type the word “takeoff” into your search bar; you’ll probably find listings for brand new wheels that came from nice, factory-built road bikes that were quickly removed for custom parts that the owner already had. They’ll probably be fairly heavy; even mid-range wheels are around the 2000g mark. But they’ll be fairly bombproof, as major manufacturers don’t take risks when it comes to wheelsets. Bontrager is your friend here: Trek’s house brand uses high-quality rebranded rims and hubs that last for a jillion miles.

Wheels are probably the first major purchase you’ll make when you frivolously upgrade your bike. Carbon wheels are worth the hype, and even a good set of Ultegra hubs hand-laced to Mavic OpenPro rims will provide a noticeable difference. But for right now, your focus should be getting some miles on the rig.

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The occasional bike shop employee or weight-weenie cyclist will tell you stories about how his Chris King headset “stiffened up his front end” or that the “SRAM Red chain really improved shifting.” The truth of these statements is questionable, and typically can be chalked-up to bike shop guys treating baller parts as more worthy of their adjustment or installation time. Bike shop dudes are a fickle folk. They usually ride the best as a result of test bikes or “pro-deals”, and rarely do they have a reason to ride stock or budget-minded components & bikes. Get a good KMC chain. Get decent cables & housing. Buy a stem/bar/seatpost combo that wasn’t made in the 80’s, and for God’s sake install a good saddle.

But the rest of it comes down to the rider. Do you have decent parts that you can’t blame your failures on? Do you take the time to put break-in miles on your bike to learn how it works? Do you admit what you can or can’t install/adjust from a home-mechanic setting? These are all things you should ask before “upgrading” to higher-end parts or buying a new bike. If you’ve taken the time to put together a solid, well-researched road bike, it’s worth your while to determine your shortcomings. An enthusiast-level bike is attainable for significantly less than $1000. As Eddy Merckx said: “Don’t buy upgrades, ride up grades.”

Skamanda > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 12:31

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I’ve always had a problem with people that think $1000 is cheap for a bike. Sure, I’m not a biking enthusiast, but when even basic cruisers for commuting are that much most anywhere but Walmart, something has just gotten out of hand in the bike world.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 12:37

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Or go the Twingo Tamer route and buy a cheap hybrid for £200 then put thousands of miles on it trouble free. I’d love a road bike, but for those who just need a budget commuter some prebuilt stuff is just fine.

Mike > Skamanda 08/14/2015 at 13:04

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Not like it’s much different to cars or motorcycles. Having fun is expensive, nowadays.

Mattbob > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 13:06

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But how to build a mountain bike without going broke? Forks are a fortune these days!

Dusty Ventures > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 13:12

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Great article! I look forward to weeding out the troll comments when it inevitably gets shared to the front page.

MonkeePuzzle > Dusty Ventures 08/14/2015 at 13:16

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hahahaha, trolls don’t ride bikes, you can’t ride bikes in momma’s basement!

Skamanda > Mike 08/14/2015 at 13:21

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I’m not going to pretend I haven’t spent more on upgrades for my car, but we’re talking about a bicycle here. If I lived in a city where that could be my sole transportation, I might not find it as unreasonable, but the fact of most Americans lives is that their bike is an exercise tool, and something to ride every now and then for recreation - and unlike a car, spending $1000 doesn’t get you much of anything that spending that $150 at Walmart doesn’t. The $1000 cruisers some places sell are actually less capable than the $150 ones from Walmart.

Moves-Like-Senna > Skamanda 08/14/2015 at 13:27

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It really depends on the use of the bike. I have over 10k invested in my race bike (plus over another grand in my clothing) but I race and need every competitive edge I can get. Do I think everyone needs a bike like that?

No. Heck, most riders don’t need a 1000$ bike. 5-600 will buy a good solid bike without breaking the bank and will be reliable for years and years to come.

Moves-Like-Senna > Mattbob 08/14/2015 at 13:30

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Go hard fork? It’s the same as a road bike in a way, carbon>titanium>steel>aluminum is usually the fork preference for performance/comfort. Carbon forks cost a fortune, aluminum doesn’t. Same with suspension setups, but you’re right, front suspension forks are ridiculous these days... I just ordered a new one and they all seem to be in the 350-1000$ range now. Solid forks sell for so much less and create more of a challenge haha.

Mattbob > Moves-Like-Senna 08/14/2015 at 13:33

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I was seriously considering a solid fork, but some of the drops and roots I have been hitting at speed lately would really hurt. A plush fork is just nice. I picked up a used Fox Float R talas a couple years ago for $200 and I have been spoiled. It needs a rebuild, but I’ve been debating just getting a new fork since I picked it up so cheap. I’ve heard good things about the suntour epicons being very cheap for how good they are.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 14:04

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Buys cannondale CAAD5, breaks CAAD5, get warranty CAAD7, breaks CAAD 7, gets warranty CAAD9, rides CAAD9 for ever and is happy.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Skamanda 08/14/2015 at 14:14

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“...unlike a car, spending $1000 doesn’t get you much of anything that spending that $150 at Walmart doesn’t.”

Spoken like someone who doesn’t know a thing about bikes. I’m not going to go all holier-than-thou on you. Heck, the only carbon bike part I own is a fork which came with one of my bikes. But I am going to point out a few things that you obviously haven’t thought about.

What do you get when you buy something NOT from a chain store? Let’s start with better materials. Leave a walmart bike outside for a week and this will become painfully obvious. Every nut and bolt, many of the chrome-plated parts, the chain, and all of the cables will start rusting. Not just a little rusting, a lot of rusting. I can safely leave any of my bikes outside for weeks at a time (say, on a long tour) and not have to worry about this.

Do you know what all moving parts move on? Bearings or bushings. On a cheap bike, the only parts that get bearings are the headset, bottom bracket, pedals, and wheels. The cheap bearings they use in these parts are prone to rusting and their races are prone to developing divots. You won’t see any sealed bearings on these bikes! Other moving parts get cheap bushings. I’ve even found some of them made of plastic.

The drivetrain and shifters are usually years or decades out of date and are made of cheap materials that can’t be repaired. Where even a cheap bike-shop bike will have three-piece cranks with separate chain rings, the cheapest of the chain store bikes will have a one-piece crank with the chain rings riveted together. Break any of these parts and good luck getting a replacement.

Worst of all is these things are HEAVY. Heavy bikes aren’t fun to ride. The bike pictured here, one that most people won’t buy because it costs $300 (at Target), weighs 32 lbs. Even my ‘76 steel Schwinn weighs less than that.

Imagine the performance difference if your car weighed 1/3 less.

Last of all, let’s talk about construction and assembly. Cheap bikes are slapped together at every step, from manufacturing the frame to final assembly. Go look at the welds on cheap frames. Poor welds are prone to stress cracking and cheap bikes have some of the nastiest welds around. I’ve dealt with improperly tensioned wheels, cross-threaded pedals, improperly spaced cranks, and misaligned parts, all on brand-new bikes.

Most people don’t know this, but bikes are shipped to stores partially disassembled and, much like a car dealership, it is up to the store to do final prep and assembly. The chain stores provide rudimentary training in this process and recruit from all departments when the shipments arrive. The bike you buy may have been put together by someone who normally stocks the freezer section. Please observe the bike below. See anything wrong? No? Look closely.

In case you didn’t see it, the forks are installed backwards . Both this bike and the one below it had the same assembly error. These were sitting on the racks at a local Dick’s Sporting Goods. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t catch it. The sales guy responsible for the bike section didn’t either until I pointed it out to him.

Before you step up and say that all things are equal, do your homework first. I’m sure you wouldn’t say you are getting the same quality by buying a low-end Honda versus a low-end Hyundai. There’s a reason one bike is sold in a bike shop and the other in a chain store.

Dusty Ventures > MonkeePuzzle 08/14/2015 at 14:23

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I’m thinking of the ones who will rant about how cyclists are literally Hitler and how advice on bikes “doesn’t belong on a car blog”

Anon > Skamanda 08/14/2015 at 14:25

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Here’s my advise, get fitted for a bike, like find out what frame size you need. Then go find you an old steel road bike for like $80! Hell I own a $1700 Specialized Allez but still love riding my 1970’s Nishiki Sport! It’s the difference of riding a modern supercar and a first gen miata! One’s fast and fun, the other is slow but super fun!

RallyWrench > Dusty Ventures 08/14/2015 at 14:27

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Truth. It happens every damn time.

MonkeePuzzle > Dusty Ventures 08/14/2015 at 14:28

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it’s a vehicle blog, wiht perhaps a focus on cars. but you’re right, sadly so :(

hi trolls *waves*

RallyWrench > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 14:34

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Excellent article! I commute on an aluminum Norco cyclocross bike that I’ve got less than a grand in, and do everything but build wheels myself. You don’t need a hotshot gruppo or carbon anything to keep the wheels turning.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 14:54

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“ “Rigid” is the key clause here: these bikes can beat you up.”

While I really enjoyed the rest of your article, this one assertion is really annoying. Let’s distinguish between vertical and horizontal compliance. Horizontal compliance is seen as lateral flex under pedaling loads. If you have a lot of horizontal compliance, the frame will feel like a wet noodle under hard acceleration.

A lack of vertical compliance is what transmits bumps from the road to your hands, feet, and butt. Frames are vertically stiff ( or not, in some cases) by design. Take a look at vertical compliance test results from a number of different frames:

Softride Rocket R1 Aluminum: 1.4”

Litespeed Tuscany Production Titanium Frame: .064”

Generic Butted Chromoly Frame: .061”

Kestrel KM40 Carbon: .060”

Seven Axiom Butted Titanium: .057”

Serotta Legend Ti OS – Oversized Butted Titanium down tube and chain stays: .054”

Marinoni Lugged Butted Reynolds Chromoly: .052”

Trek OCLV 110 Carbon: .052”

Klein Quantum Pro Oversized Aluminum: .052”

Cannondale CAAD 3 Oversized Aluminum: .049”

Note that the most vertically compliant frame is aluminum - and that is by design.

I had the good fortune to discuss this issue with a couple of the greats - Jobst Brandt and Sheldon Brown (R.I.P.). They set me straight when I started spouting drivel about the harshness of aluminum frames. The first thing I was told to do - go let some air out of the tires. What a difference that made. Then I did an even more reasonable thing. I put on some larger tires. These days I run 700x38s. I won’t be winning any races (I’d have to enter one first anyway), but I can guarantee I’m the most comfortable guy out there on our weekend rides.

I am in agreement with Mark Hickey (owner/builder of Habanero Cycles), most of the “harshness” people claim to feel from aluminum frames is acoustic. On a smooth road, all well-maintained bikes feel smooth. On a rough road, aluminum bikes transmit more audible noise than a steel-framed bike given they are running the same wheels and tires at the same pressure. I’ve tried this with a couple of my bikes. I also notice that my aluminum bike with big tires make much less noise than the aluminum and carbon bikes on skinny tires around me.

Just like you discovered that high-end parts aren’t going to make that much difference to the average rider, I think you will discover that tire size and pressure will make a much greater difference in the harshness of the ride than the frame material.

DasWauto > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 15:48

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Excellent article. I’d love to build a bike someday, probably when I upgrade from my current stable. I ride a Specialised P.1AM on lots of singletrack and my roadie is an Allez Elite with the Tiagra components you recommended. That bike cost me a bit under $1000 which is in line with what piecing it together myself might have cost me so I’m content there. Unfortunately the $CAD is in the gutter right now and I’d lose out on buying parts internationally right now so that’s keeping some upgrades at bay.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Dusty Ventures 08/14/2015 at 16:45

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Well... I occasionally come by bike, have German heritage, and work for a German company... Coincidence? Or illuminati?

Captain Brotatohead > Jim Zeigler 08/14/2015 at 20:16

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I love seeing posts about bikes on oppo, we need more. I put together a bike, but it was quite a bit more expensive than the solid recommendations you make. I bought my CAAD10 frame after one year of use from a forum rider. The frame, Thomson masterpiece seatpost, 2 forks (he cut the one too short for himself) and the Hollowgram crankset costed me $1050. The groupset was Ultegra 6800 purchased from Merlincycles UK for $550 (Minus an additional $210 from selling the spare 6800 crank), wheels are November Rail Carbon Clinchers ~$1500 and a cheap set of $300 alloys. Throw in pedals, bar tape, k-edge camera/garmin mount, and saddle for another $300. Including both wheelsets I’m at roughly $3,500 for the build. Granted, I could basically have another complete bike for only the cost of a frame and groupset. Being a person who rides their bike(s) 400+ hours a year it’ll happen eventually.

Here’s a shot from my climb up skyline drive last summer. Dancing shoes on too.

Skamanda > Moves-Like-Senna 08/17/2015 at 10:19

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I can fully appreciate how much better a race bike is for its purposes. I’ve pedaled a carbon fiber bike with super light wheels, where the tires were the heaviest part of the thing. Absolutely, if you’re racing, the extra expense is worth it.

But, for 99% of the people riding bikes, even $5-600 is $350 or more too much money to spend for what you get. There’s no appreciable difference in bikes that low on the food chain, between a $600 bike and a $150 Walmart cruiser. They both have one or more gears that function the same, they both weigh a ton, they both have the same riding positions available, they both have the same brakes. I think it’s pretty lame that you can’t buy a bike at a bike shop for a reasonable amount of money anymore. There’s no reason they can’t offer the $150 bikes. Heck, even the used bike shops are selling cheap old bikes at $600, just because they feel they can. The entire industry needs a reality check.

Skamanda > TheRealBicycleBuck 08/17/2015 at 10:45

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OK, I’ll take the bait.

The bike I’d say most men should consider if they went to Walmart is this Mongoose. It’s not their cheapest, and it’s not their most expensive, but it has a good set of features and it’s only $150. I’m well aware Mongoose isn’t as good a name as it was when their most popular products were freestyle BMX bikes, but the fact is they’ve been making bikes since the 70s, and while they do maintain separate product lines for sale in Walmart versus a bike shop, even the Walmart ones benefit from habits formed during decades of doing things right. That bike, for example, has all the gear changing and braking equipment that 99.9(repeating)% of people riding a bike will ever need, and the 3 piece crank you speak so highly of. If the shifter or derailleur are a couple generations old, no general consumer is ever going to notice, or care. Even if all of the various pieces of non-bike-specific hardware (nuts, bolts, bearings, etc.) are cheaper, with a less rust-resistant finish than the equivalent model they sell in bike shops, you’re talking about somewhere in the range of $50 worth of parts from any place that sells them other than a bike shop (I’ve replaced a lot of nuts from those at a hardware store, for example). The frame is going to be similar, made from similar materials. The price premium is, much like those seen on say - a used Subaru Impreza. It’s only there because that’s what the market at large thinks is the price you pay for those things. Just like a used Subaru Impreza, the price is several times higher than it should realistically be.

If you took almost everyone that was ever in the market for a bike like that, and sold them the Walmart version instead of the bike shop equivalent from the same brand (and assume it was built according to the instructions, because I’ve seen bike shops mess up a build, so it’s not like you can guarantee they’ll do it right either), aside from some surface rust and possibly replacing the wheels with something nicer, they’ll never regret the purchase and they’ll never need or even notice the difference between it and the bike shop version. Will some parts rust? Sure. Will they on the bike shop version? Sure. Metal rusts - it’s a fact of life. At $150, they could afford to sell the bike on craigslist, and pick up another for less than they’d need to do the repairs on the old one.

I can fully appreciate that there is a level of difference between the two lines Mongoose offers, my point is that those differences only genuinely affect a small percentage of the purchasers, and don’t justify how much more expensive the bike shop versions are. If someone wants a competition bike, or is serious about wanting the better bits, fine. Have a more expensive model available - but don’t pretend that the cheap ones aren’t out there at the bike shops. That’s just bad business sense on the part of the bike shops, and it’s why so many of them are Subways or nail salons now...

Skamanda > Anon 08/17/2015 at 10:49

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I agree wholeheartedly! Personally, my spinal shape relegates me to cruisers, but as with most things I’ve set a personal hard limit on buying a bike of $200, and I’m not at all disappointed with anything I’ve found below that price. Right now I’m riding a Schwinn Moab like the one in the pic in this post, and I’m perfectly happy with its quality. I’m going to try and convert it to a different set of bars, so I don’t have to ride it hunched over, but that’s a personal comfort thing rather than a quality thing...

TheRealBicycleBuck > Skamanda 08/17/2015 at 14:53

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Glad you “took the bait.” Now I’ll return the favor.

The bike I’d say most men should consider if they went to Walmart is this Mongoose. It’s not their cheapest, and it’s not their most expensive, but it has a good set of features and it’s only $150.

Wow. You really went out on a limb recommending a full-suspension bike as a point of comparison. Let’s start with fit. Any bike from a chain store is going to be one-size-fits-all. Take the average Joe and build a bike for him. If you fall outside Joe’s basic dimensions, this bike won’t fit you. If it doesn’t fit properly, it will be painful to ride. To drive this point home, I ask you to do a simple test. Squat down about 6 inches. Don’t cheat and bend over. Just bend at the knees. Now walk across the room while maintaining that height. Feel the burn in your legs? That’s the same burn you get when you ride a bike that is too small. Now try a different exercise. Reach forward with your hands as far as you can while standing on your toes. Walk across the room. Feel the burn in your calves and lower back? That’s the same as riding a bike that is too big. While there is some adjustability in every bike, most people (that 99% you like to quote) have no idea how to do anything but raise and lower the seat and they usually get that wrong (your feet shouldn’t be flat on the ground when sitting on the seat).

You recommend a full-suspension bike for “most men”. Why? A full-suspension bike has more points of failure and more parts that have to be built as cheaply as possible. All of the rear suspension components are riding on plastic bushings and mongoose themselves recommend that these are disassembled and regreased at least once per riding season. Why would you recommend something that needs even more maintenance?

This bike weighs over 40lbs. We all know that weight is the enemy, especially when it comes to something we have to power ourselves. A heavy bike isn’t fun to ride. It takes more energy to get it moving and more braking power to get it to stop. It is harder to maneuver. This doesn’t make people want to get out there and ride.

That bike, for example, has all the gear changing and braking equipment that 99.9(repeating)% of people riding a bike will ever need, and the 3 piece crank you speak so highly of. If the shifter or derailleur are a couple generations old, no general consumer is ever going to notice, or care.

Don’t you think that the 99% needs crisp, consistent shifting? How about brakes that don’t chatter and fade? Why wouldn’t they need cables that don’t rust inside their housings or chains that won’t rust if left outside? If you believe that the shifters on cheap bikes are just leftovers from previous generations, you are mistaken. While they may use the same molds, the parts are actively re-engineered in order to take advantage of cheaper, less durable materials. I contend that they will notice when the parts perform poorly.

Even if all of the various pieces of non-bike-specific hardware (nuts, bolts, bearings, etc.) are cheaper, with a less rust-resistant finish than the equivalent model they sell in bike shops, you’re talking about somewhere in the range of $50 worth of parts from any place that sells them other than a bike shop (I’ve replaced a lot of nuts from those at a hardware store, for example).

Good luck sourcing stainless steel metric parts. I’ve tried to go the cheap route and source hardware from the local big box store. I had to go to a specialty store to find stainless bolts in the right size. The “99%” aren’t going to go to the effort.

If you took almost everyone that was ever in the market for a bike like that, and sold them the Walmart version instead of the bike shop equivalent from the same brand (and assume it was built according to the instructions, because I’ve seen bike shops mess up a build, so it’s not like you can guarantee they’ll do it right either), aside from some surface rust and possibly replacing the wheels with something nicer, they’ll never regret the purchase and they’ll never need or even notice the difference between it and the bike shop version. Will some parts rust? Sure. Will they on the bike shop version? Sure. Metal rusts - it’s a fact of life. At $150, they could afford to sell the bike on craigslist, and pick up another for less than they’d need to do the repairs on the old one.

You make a lot of assumptions here. I have been the victim of several chain-store bikes. All of them were defective in some way and were returned. The one that lasted the longest developed rust on its shiny bits after the first time I was caught in the rain. I regretted owning every one of those bikes.

In sharp contrast - I rode my Cannondale in the rain and mud regularly. The only part that ever rusted was one of the water bottle mounting bolts. Although I don’t ride it much any more, that bike is still in great shape 20 years later. My other bike-shop bikes are much the same, including the ‘76 Schwinn which I do ride regularly.

I can fully appreciate that there is a level of difference between the two lines Mongoose offers, my point is that those differences only genuinely affect a small percentage of the purchasers, and don’t justify how much more expensive the bike shop versions are. If someone wants a competition bike, or is serious about wanting the better bits, fine. Have a more expensive model available - but don’t pretend that the cheap ones aren’t out there at the bike shops. That’s just bad business sense on the part of the bike shops, and it’s why so many of them are Subways or nail salons now...

In my experience, cheap bikes result in people that don’t ride because their cheap bikes are uncomfortable, perform poorly due to cheap parts or parts that fail prematurely, and are too heavy to be fun. Even the cheap bike shop bikes solve these problems. I’m not talking about a racing bike, I’m talking about entry-level bikes that cost roughly two to three times the chain-store bikes.

By the way, in our area, two new shops have opened in the past eight years.