So, OK, I'm in one of the local Mall-Warts this morning, and there's this 26" front-suspension MTB
with a "clearance" tag marked $30. There's another one just like it on the rack at full price, so I
look closer; yep, obviously a customer return, as it has plenty of pad scrapes on the rims and a
little bit of unwashed dirt on the kickstand clamp.
"So", I sez to myself (quietly, lest people realize that I'm a little off), "what's so wrong with
this one that a customer tossed it back, and why do they want to mark it down to such a bargain
level?" I commenced to give it the fine-tooth-comb treatment. First thing checked; wheel truing.
Perhaps I should call it "wheel falsing". Okay, so the wheels are a bit wobbly; would a Mall-Wart
customer even notice? Maybe not. Continuing; brakes. Brakes? What brakes? Oh, you mean those levers
on the handlebars that move those rubber thingies over so that they hit the high spots on the
wheels? Are those supposed to be *brakes*? Yup, cables won't even adjust out at the levers enough to
get a grip; that's black mark number two. Shifters next. Hmmm. Front der drags on the chain when the
grip is twisted all the way down to the 1 position, cable goes super-tight and the der runs the
chain to the big cog about 3 clicks before the end of the grip's twist range, so the stops and cable
are *both* misadjusted. And sorry, SRAM, but that *isn't* an indexed shifter, no matter what the
decals and markings might say; it's got three numbers on the twist grip, but about 20 "stops". So,
that's items 3 and 4 that they missed on setup, and one black mark for the manufacturer as well.
Rear der's next; the stops are set almost close enough for a MIL-spec contract, but the cable is
misadjusted out the wazzoo; 5 positions give a random choice of two gears each, although the top cog
setting is hard against the stop and fairly predictable. Strike 5 for the store's assembly person.
Too bad this isn't bowling, five strikes would make a decent game. Looking even more closely, the
quill's not *quite* centered; OK, that's a gimme, not worth a tally mark. The crank's a one-piece in
an old-style BB; sheesh, these guys really went low-tech all the way. The tube stem on one tire's at
just enough of an angle to chafe through in a few hundred miles; sloppy, and not a mistake that I
would have let go by if I'd done the QC, but probably not enough to get flagged at Mall-Wart even if
they were looking. No skewers, so they didn't have much opportunity for a screwup on the axles, and
no apparent play in the hubs; score one in favor of the factory on that, I'd say, though it's the
first green check they get so far. That's pretty much all of it; the rims were proudly marked as
being steel (and the paint scrapes from the pad hits identified the places where the truing needed
the most attention quite nicely) but the frame didn't admit to being made of anything in particular.
It *might* have been aluminum, but I didn't have a magnet handy, and I rather doubt that it was. The
saddle (I use the term by courtesy) was essentially decorative as far as I was concerned; about as
comfortable as a piece of two by four covered with carpeting.
Noting that the subject of x-mart-level assembly had come up here recently, I decided that this
might be a good time to see if my prior information still held true; I asked. Yup, they typically
adjust *nothing* when they assemble a bike, unless you want to call randomly popping the seat post
in at no particular depth and sorta centering the quill as "adjustments". Who does the work? "Well,
whoever's available that knows how to put one together." (I didn't press for clarification on that
point; I think it's safe to assume that if the employee knows which end of the crescent wrench is
used for pounding in screws, they'll draw the duty sooner or later.)
This adventure has been chronicled both for your immediate amusement and so that the next time
somebody points out an amazingly low price in a Mall-Wart bike ad in the Sunday paper, you'll be
even more fully equipped to explain why buying one of those is not your idea of a fun thing to do
this week.
--
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