Buying my first bike

I am looking at buying my very first new bike and am considering buying the Trek 820 women's bike. I really like it and the price is good. My local bike shop had it for $350.

I was given a Huffy Mt. Echo 18 speed mountain bike. It was bought in 2002 and I did replace the tubes and tires. Rides a little rough but it does work.

My riding consists of around town on the sidewalk, road and some off road trails. I live in the UP so we have a lot of 4 wheeler/snow mobile trails that I'm hoping to try. Going to campgrounds every summer and riding the trails around the campground.

My one question for the community here, is Trek really worth the price? I have heard that it is and some have told me it isn't. What are your thoughts on it. A Walmart bike vs Bike shop bike?

 

With the Trek you can easily get replacement parts for it, the Walmart bikes use a lot of parts that are not available after the sale which will lead you to buying another bike if something breaks. Walmart bikes don't last anywhere near as long as bikes like the Trek.

There is one problem with the Trek 820 and that's the fork, cheap suspension forks on a bike do absolutely nothing for your type of riding, or even offroad riding, their too cheap to respond correctly for fast offroad use, on the surfaces you said you'll be on they don't have any effect. Those forks are heavy, they will dive down at every turn of the crank, so combined with the weight that is all stealing watts from your forward motion; on top of that they don't last long and cost quite a bit to replace, almost as much as a new bike! So you really don't want a suspension bike.

Problem with what I said above is that will raise your price point higher, so you have 2 choices: 1, either stay with what you now have and save more money; 2, buy the Trek and when the fork goes bad get a rigid fork replacement for it. Personally I would go with option 1 and save a total of around $850. Sorry I'm such a bummer of bad news.

 

$350 could be a nice price for the trek depending on its condition. Anyway - you would definitely feel the huge difference from the huffy.