Schwinn Sidewinder at Walmart

Joe wrote:
Walmart has a Schwinn Sidewinder for $139.72. It's Chinese made and looks
pretty well made.

The characteristics of the bike aside, are you comfortable patronizing
a business owned by five of the ten richest people on earth, who
nevertheless pay 90% of their employees minimum wage with no benefits?
Are you okay with buying from a company that destroys three good jobs for
every two lousy ones it creates? Can you live with knowing you supported
a company that has much of its merchandise made in the worst of China's
sweatshops?


Bill


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| All wealth is power, so power must infallibly |
| draw wealth to it by some means or another. |
| --Edmund Burke, 1780 |
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On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 21:49:23 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

Joe wrote:
Walmart has a Schwinn Sidewinder for $139.72. It's Chinese made and looks
pretty well made.

The characteristics of the bike aside, are you comfortable patronizing
a business owned by five of the ten richest people on earth, who
nevertheless pay 90% of their employees minimum wage with no benefits?
Are you okay with buying from a company that destroys three good jobs for
every two lousy ones it creates? Can you live with knowing you supported
a company that has much of its merchandise made in the worst of China's
sweatshops?


Bill


You try to make it all sound as if these are bad things.

Ted

"Cheto" wrote in message
...

I like Walmart for toilet paper. It's pretty well made,
though I don't know
where it comes from. I would buy a bike from a bike shop.
I would buy my
toilet paper from my bike shop too, but unfortunately, they
don't carry the
brand I like.

No paper, maybe, but there's the Park Tool model TP-2
dispenser:
http://www.awcycles.co.uk/products.p...54s124p1201&tb
v=PARK_TOOL_Toilet_Roll_Holder_TP-2_ACCESSORIES_Miscellaneous_
Items

"Steve McDonald" wrote in message
...

Roadmaster

See quote below from previous post. I bought a similar model of
Roadmaster a year ago for most of the same reasons. Mine has stiff
front shocks and cost $60. I use it as my "bus bike". I take it when I
carry a backpack and ride the city bus. I load it on the front racks of
a bus and then use it to pedal to a destination beyond where the bus
goes. Some of our bus routes go as far as 60 miles into the mountains,
for no extra charge beyond $1.20 for a day-pass. It is indeed amazing
for its solid features and quality for the price. It rides nicely and
is fairly fast on pavement. I haven't had to do a thing to it, except
give it a good wheel truing and other such adjustments when it was new.
I wouldn't want to leave one of my more expensive bikes locked up at a
remote trailhead and this one wouldn't put much of a dent in my wallet
if it was stolen. $ for $, it's the best buy I've ever made on a new
bike.

Steve McDonald
Eugene, Oregon

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Earl Bollinger wrote:

Well Walmart has this amazing $50 bike
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...3A61904%3A5304
But maybe it isn't in all the stores though. I bought one to use as a
beater bike. Doesn't have a lot of gears, but usually you don't need
more than 7 or 8 anyway.
It so far seems pretty solid. I figure if it falls apart and or ****es
me off I'll just abandon it on the side of the road and hitch hike home.
Plus if someone steals it, it won't be a big disaster. Without shocks
and a fancy fork, the theives probably aren't all that interested in it
though. I could probably abandon it on the side of the road, hitch hike
home. get my truck and go back to pick it up and it would still be there
on the side of the road. The cops would find it and maybe trace it
back to me and contact me to find out what happened and if I am Ok or
not.


I bought my son a fancier $160 MTB at Walmart about 4-5 years ago. Except
for the typical rusty nuts and bolts from being left in the rain, the bike
only needed things like oiling the chain and putting air in the tires. It
still works fine, he went off with some of his friend's MTBing on a trail in
Grapevine TX over at the lake and the bike still works OK afterwards. Of
course he had a few "rub" and "scrape" marks though.

"Earl Bollinger" wrote:


Well Walmart has this amazing $50 bike

"Wal-Mart", "amazing" and "bike" shouldn't be used in the same
sentence.

Nor should "jabario" and "brilliant" or insightful, but thats another
story.

Earl Bollinger wrote:

I bought my son a fancier $160 MTB at Walmart about 4-5 years ago. Except
for the typical rusty nuts and bolts from being left in the rain, the bike
only needed things like oiling the chain and putting air in the tires. It
still works fine, he went off with some of his friend's MTBing on a trail in
Grapevine TX over at the lake and the bike still works OK afterwards. Of
course he had a few "rub" and "scrape" marks though.

I have seen a few "fancy" dept store mountain bikes literally fall apart
on the trail. Aside from that, they are usually only incredibly heavy
and poor functioning (suspension, braking, shifting). In contrast, I
have bought solid, "minimal" mountain bikes for $250 or so from LBS,
which provided years of good service in pretty demanding terrain. Both
types of bike are Chinese-made, but the LBS bikes tend to be better
spec'd and better assembled. That you remark that the bike still worked
after a single off-road trip kind of indicates your expectations. I
realize I'm treading on sensitive ground here, but as a parent, I worry
that too much cost cutting *might* have safety implications, especially
when a MTB is actually used off-road.

"Peter Cole" wrote in message
...
Earl Bollinger wrote:

I bought my son a fancier $160 MTB at Walmart about 4-5 years ago. Except
for the typical rusty nuts and bolts from being left in the rain, the
bike only needed things like oiling the chain and putting air in the
tires. It still works fine, he went off with some of his friend's MTBing
on a trail in Grapevine TX over at the lake and the bike still works OK
afterwards. Of course he had a few "rub" and "scrape" marks though.

I have seen a few "fancy" dept store mountain bikes literally fall apart
on the trail. Aside from that, they are usually only incredibly heavy and
poor functioning (suspension, braking, shifting). In contrast, I have
bought solid, "minimal" mountain bikes for $250 or so from LBS, which
provided years of good service in pretty demanding terrain. Both types of
bike are Chinese-made, but the LBS bikes tend to be better spec'd and
better assembled. That you remark that the bike still worked after a
single off-road trip kind of indicates your expectations. I realize I'm
treading on sensitive ground here, but as a parent, I worry that too much
cost cutting *might* have safety implications, especially when a MTB is
actually used off-road.

Well he has had it for several years, and beat the crap out of it, and it
still works.
I have never had to adjust the derailuers in all that time.
A coupleof his friends giot brand name $600 bikes from the LBS, guess which
bikes got stolen?
Those same two friends now have Walmart specials too.
I won't say if anyone else will have that luck or not with bikes. I don't
know.

wrote:
Joe wrote:

Walmart has a Schwinn Sidewinder for $139.72. It's Chinese made and looks
pretty well made.


The characteristics of the bike aside, are you comfortable patronizing
a business owned by five of the ten richest people on earth, who
nevertheless pay 90% of their employees minimum wage with no benefits?

OTOH, we are already subsidizing Wal-Mart with our tax money, so perhaps
we should take advantage of it.

"http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/08/02_walmart.shtml"