K-Mart Bikes
I had an interesting adventure at the bike workshop today.
A person came in with 2 brand new bikes from K-mart and needed some assistance with assembling them.
Having seen the add that people would assemble them for $16 I thought that this should be straight forward.
The first was a BMX bike that he had made a good attempt at putting together however one of the break blocks on the front wheel had failed before it was ridden this should be straight forward I thought. After repairing the break blocks we discovered the wheel was buckled. So eventually we got the bike in serviceable condition.
So we started on a MTB that was still in the box it had alloy rims so I thought this would be a better quality bike. However the front wheel had no method of locating it in the fork centring the V breaks was quite challenging.
After over 2 hours of exasperation and frustration I can understand why bike shops are not keen to work on them personally while they look nice and shiny mechanically I would be tempted to argue they are not of merchantable quality.
Suddenly a base grade bike from a bike shop at 2 to 3 times the price looks like a bargain.
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Comment by Rob on February 4, 2012 at 20:37 -
You will find the wear and tear on them becomes excessive rather quickly, they are heavy but not durable....believe I could wear one out in under a week.....now that would make a great Adelaide Cyclists experiment :) for example do hill repeats on a kmart bike and see how long it lasts :)
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Comment by Tiny Avenger on February 4, 2012 at 20:40 -
If a bike comes out of a box with faulty parts surely it should go back? I wouldn't want to ride it if that is the quality - its dangerous enough on the road with drivers without riding a faulty bike as well...
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Comment by Don (Who's lost?) Nairn on February 4, 2012 at 21:18 -
this was pointed out to the person involved but he wasn't keen to pursue this option.
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Comment by rossmg on February 5, 2012 at 2:11 -
Goodness gracious! And a work colleague has just bought a KMart bike and has asked me to help him with some of the assembly he is having trouble with - gads...
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Comment by Don (Who's lost?) Nairn on February 5, 2012 at 4:59
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After this session I would say they are fine as long as you don't ride them.
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Comment by Lee-Anne on February 6, 2012 at 15:17 -
Goodness!!! (or Badness!!) Send them my way as it looks like they'll need to lessons on how to ride really well with such faulty bikes!
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Comment by GlenM on February 7, 2012 at 14:44 -
I bough an MTB from K-Mart about 6 years ago. It took me 15 minutes to put it together and I commuted regularly on it for 3 years. The only parts replaced were the chain and freewheel ( several times) and I still ride it occasionally.
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Comment by Don (Who's lost?) Nairn on February 7, 2012 at 15:10
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sounds like you had a good run from it.
have the bikes got cheaper and nastyer in the last 6 years?
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Comment by rossmg on February 8, 2012 at 8:19
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Well, made it over to my work colleague's house yesterday to adjust the front brakes which were allegedly causing grief on the new Kmart bike. I looked at the bike and something was rather strange, the V-Brake on the front was on the inside of the fork, the handle bars looked weird and the wheel mounts that flanged out were also on the inside - the whole front end was on back-to-front! Had come that way in the box... We had quite a chuckle and then "fixed" it. Apart from being "cheap" it looks like it should run just fine, we'll see...
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Comment by Don (Who's lost?) Nairn on February 8, 2012 at 8:57
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Funny you mention this I saw a bike that was being ridden with the forks backwards while I was on holiday.
It seems likey the frame geometry and handling wold not be as intended
© 2012 Created by Gus K.
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