Bike of Doom passes 250 Km. inspection
by Steve ~ April 11th, 2007. Filed under: Maintenance & Repairs.Although unscheduled, I thought I’d give the BOD a good look over to make sure it wasn’t falling apart… you read enough bad news about department store bikes and you start to believe it!
Everything looks fine. Wheels remain true, spoke tension consistent. Gears are working properly and shift as well as can be expected for friction shifters. In fact, the friction shifters seems to require much less care than their more expensive index shifter cousins. The brake levers had a little too much play so I tightened the cables. Cleaned and lubed the drive train. Cleaned it up a little.
All in all, the bike looks good and is now, I think, fully broken in. Other than lubing the drive train and unanticipated repairs, my next planned maintenance inspections are 500 Km and 1,000 Km. Both those numbers are beyond the predicted lifespan of this kind of bike, but I’m hopeful.
At the moment I kind of feel like a guy who was told by his doctor that he only has a week to live who now finds himself a month later, doing well.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:41 am
I bet that bike will last more than a 1000 k. Especially if you take fairly good care of it. Aren’t those the kind of bike people buy their kids to knock about the neighborhood. Or don’t they do that anymore. The bike we had as kids were pretty durable. I wonder if they made them more like tanks in those days. I don’t think i knew anyone with a tenspeed, more three speeds.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Yeah, I’m hoping it will last at least 2,000 Km, or more. If I commute until October, that should be about 2,500 Km. Not bad for a $99. bike. Mike and I were chatting about Supercycles and other Canadian Tire bikes the other night while we were out riding. We see a lot of them out on the road, mostly being ridden by kids, or parents out with kids, and mostly on the sidewalk. Supercycle is still the first place most Canadian’s get a bike, and probably the last place for a lot of them. Mike figured they probably sell “zillions” of bikes a year… I’d guess more than all other bike stores in Canada combined. All my kids had bikes from Canadian Tire. Why would you blow more than $100 on a kid’s bike before you know if the kid is going to use it? These cheapo bikes are fine for tooling around the neighbourhood, and not bad for commuting, either.