Robert: What is the difference between a department store bike and a bike shop bike?
I need to know because I want a bike from the department store, but people tell me to buy from the bike shop.
Answers and Views:
Answer by Hershell
don’t buy a department store bike you will spend a lot more on fixing it down the road not to mention how much nicer the bike shop bike will ride
A department store likely doesn’t have anyone qualified to help you find the best bike for you, and tune and adjust it to fit you even better. If you’re serious about cycling, the bike shop is the place to go.Answer by G Doc
Depending on your budget, the bicycle shop bikes have better components and are made from lighter materials. You can get a decent bike from a department store but you will notice that they are heavy as heck. If you dont have to have a brand new bike, go to the bike shop, scope out the model of style and buy the previous year model.Answer by PAT K
Generally a department store will sell you an unassembled bike – you have to fit bars, saddle, wheels, and sometimes more.
A bike shop will do this for you and adjust everything to your size.
It’s very important for safety reasons to correctly assemble a bike.
Suggest you buy from the department store and if you’re not sure about your assembly skills, get your local bike shop to put it together for you.
You could show willing buy buying some accessories from them!
Good luckAnswer by Gosling
A department store won’t offer the all important after sales service. I can still go back to the shop I bought my bike from 18 months ago and say that the gears are slightly off centre and they will re-align them for free. My oldest decent bike is 25 years old, my wife’s cheap heap is 3 years old but looks far worse than the 25 year old bike due to rust and scratches on the cheap paint job. It also weighs a ton and is pretty ugly. I’d always suggest spending a little bit more to get something decent from a bike shop.Answer by Zachariah
Wal-Mart/Target bike = a heavy, breakable toy
Bike store bike = years of trouble-free fun, and the BEST shape you’ll ever be!!!
Answer by Bob ACons of a department store bike.
1. Made of the cheapest materials available to keep costs down.
2. They only come in one size.
3. They are assembled by people that don’t know anything about a bike and don’t care to.
4. They are imposable to keep it working correctly. Most of the shifters are just stamped metal or the lowest grade components.
5. You have to go to Yahoo answers to get help with your bike.
6. Bike shops wont touch these bikes with a ten foot pole.
7. These bikes have no resale value.
8. They are heavy and very inefficient. The full suspension bikes are really bad at eating up your energy.
Answer by RobertoBesides quality, fit is a very important issue on bikes. Most department stores bikes comes in a one size sells all. So, if you’re just the standard sized man you might fit well, if not, the bike will be small/large and not that confortable.
A good bike shop will help you get the right sized bike. In part, this is a very important issue.
Also, build quality will be different. Product support. As well as how good or bad the bike was assembled, etc..
I would really suggest that you at least go to a bike shop, talk with the salesmen and get to test ride some bikes, you will likely find a bike within your budget that fits you.
Answer by edward wI am a PBS sales associate and P/t mechanic in VA and I am running a start-up shop of my own w/ a partner. There has to be said alot about a shop quality bike even in the $ 200 range for our lower end quality vs a big box store bike (shaped object). Personally as a mechanic I wont touch anything from a dept store unless I have alot of time and it is in the off season and then only to keep busy if there is absolutely NOTHING else to do! Dept store junk is just that junk! They have NO QUALIFIED SALES / MECHANIC STAFF AT ALL!
The bikes that are built routinely are built by the one person who recently put their chain back on their own bike succesfully and told the manager about it and that person told them to go in the back and build a few bikes…..Not qualified to build a SAFE BIKE!
The parts on these dept store bikes are the worst of the worst and even if they are Sram SX4 they will never be much better than this and this is the lowest group of components that i would accept anyway, Shimano: tourney at the lowest. Dept store bikes will end up costing you nearly more in one year than you paid for the bike originally (maybe even more $ in less time) in repairs. Yes, dept store bikes do work (if assembled correctly) but IF is a big word here and they generally are not assembled correctly and you either have to do it yourself or take it to a shop anyway and you WILL BE CHARGED! Bike shop quality is without a doubt BETTER! You will get service after the sale and in some instances free adjustments for as long as you own the bike, FULL warranty with a shop that has parts on hand to fix whatever should fail within the warranty period of the bike, at dept stores you just take the bike back and get a new one and hope it is better or you get your money back. Shops have a staff that will know how to fix your bike if it should break and will be knowledgable in varied ridding styles and have a base knowledge of what they sell too. Good luck finding someone in Wal mart who does — anyone working in W M who does know cycling must not have many life ambitions and should be in a cycling shop so figure the odds of that really happening. I actually went into the local Wally world some time ago and acted as if I knew NOTHING at all about bikes and asked some simple pointed questions that made me seem dumb to cycling and the answers I got were absolutely and astonishingly incorrect and not to mention “life threatening” Not only that but there were bikes on the rack with RUST on the wheels and various other componenets of these bike shaped objects along with an aisle that was in total dissaray, it was unbelievable ….I wanted to throw up right then and there. You get what you pay for in cycling and if you do not have the money to afford a bike shop quality bike right now then I would suggest that you find a way to get it and do not make the same mistake that so many others do since you have taken the time to ask here as well as being told by friends that you should NOT buy from a dept store…A $ 100 bike might get you about a mile or less before something goes terribly wrong with it and if you do get a mile dont expect to get much further than that. The differences are 180 degrees between the two and If no one here has gotten this thru to you yet ….then you are doomed to ride JUNK!
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