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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
I saw one last night at my local wallymart. I was rather surprised to
see a 'road bike' there. Actually two road bikes. The other was a GMC Denali. First the Denali. I saw one last summer on Ragbrai when it came in to the bike repair shop with a flat. It had long stem Schrader valve tubes. Nothing we had would work. The shop owner tried to sell them a new wheel. I thought these bikes came packaged with new SUVS. I'm guessing wal mart is dumping them now. $149 Okay the Varsity. Bare naked 'alloy' (aluminum) frame. Tig welded. A sort of polished look. Fat aero down tube. Fastback seat stays. Vertical rear droputs. Bolted on rear wheel. QR front but no plastic. Skinny steel handlebars painted black, just straight thru the front open stem. Weird butterfly shifters on the handlebars next to the stem. Old fashioned aero brake levers. Fork is steel shaped and painted black to look carbon. Aero rims with very long stem Presta valve tubes. Good luck to the typical wall mart customer trying to figure those out. $199. One size fits all! No mention of sizes but it looked to be about a 23" frame. And of course the handle bar stem was soooo loose I could easily turn the bars while the wheel didn't move. Typical department store poor assembly. Overall this bike looks great from 50 feet away but up close is pure crap. All non-branded parts. Non existant quality. Bad finish on most parts. But it has the Schwinn name on it so it must have Schwinn's legendary quality and a Varsity to boot. Who wouldn't want one? Okay, not me. |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
parts. Non existant quality. Bad finish on most parts. But it has the
Schwinn name on it so it must have Schwinn's legendary quality and a Varsity to boot. Who wouldn't want one? Okay, not me. Are you saying that there are people who look back fondly on the Varsity? |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
Werehatrack wrote: GM has apparently not been trying to emulate VW's Jetta/Trek marketing effort; no GM vehicle comes with a bike as an accessory. That's not entirely correct. The Hummer division has a co-branded mountain bike (Montague folder) and there are a range of Cadillac branded mountain and road bikes. From the pictures and specs, they appear to be decent quality for but I'm sure they are overpriced by at least 100%. The Hummer bike is listed as an accessory under "wheels" on the hummer.com website and is also shown at hummerbikes.com. I don't know if the Cadillac bikes are available direct from the dealers as accessorys. All this really means is that GM is willing to whore out its brands as part of some crazy scheme to increase market awareness. As if someone would be convinced to purchase a Hummer, Cadillac, or Yukon after seeing one of these bikes. In the case of the Denali bike, I'd rather try my luck with a Yugo. |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
If your going to lower level to buy a bike
Walmart,Costco,ect. Bring tools along and go over the bike to be safe and not sorry. |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
On 15 Feb 2006 14:42:00 -0800, "amakyonin"
wrote: All this really means is that GM is willing to whore out its brands as part of some crazy scheme to increase market awareness. As if someone would be convinced to purchase a Hummer, Cadillac, or Yukon after seeing one of these bikes. And in the case of the Denali, any discerning cyclist would have the firm association of that name with "cheap and cheesy". In the case of the Denali bike, I'd rather try my luck with a Yugo. I still wonder whose foolish idea it was to brand a *road bike* with the name of something that's bloated, huge, inefficient, lumbering, incredibly heavy, and exemplary of everything that a road bike is *not*. On first encounter, my inherent reaction was "Well, if you're trying to find a way to tell me that this bike's exactly what I don't want, you couldn't have picked a much better name." With the Hummer, at least the image of off-road capability is reasonably well-founded. With the Denali, which is a frilly lodge queen if there ever was one, even a mountain bike would have suffered by association. As for Cadillac, they lost most of their slight remaining credibility with me when they started rebranding a Suburban with their badge, and the rest went away when they came out with their rebadged version of the Chevy Avalanche, a.k.a. "the world's largest Tonka toy[1]". [1] Apologies to Tonka. -- Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to reply via email. Words processed in a facility that contains nuts. |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
On 15 Feb 2006 14:08:23 -0800, "Adam Rush"
wrote: parts. Non existant quality. Bad finish on most parts. But it has the Schwinn name on it so it must have Schwinn's legendary quality and a Varsity to boot. Who wouldn't want one? Okay, not me. Are you saying that there are people who look back fondly on the Varsity? Sure, why not? I bought one when I was 12 years old, I paid around $70 for it. This was in 1967 and it was the bike to have, when riding to Jr high school. I had the twin sided rear baskets, to carry my books and a very cool chrome cabled speedometer. It was a way cool metallic blue. Compared to my current bike, or even the French 10-speed that I bought in 1976, the Varsity was nothing special. But when I was 12, it was. Life is Good! Jeff |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
The Varsity was never a high-end bike as I recall; it was their
entry-level road-bike-ish (heavy, clunky) unit if memory serves. Schwinn's overall value (if not always its quality) moved from "legendary" to "alleged" to "a legend" as it slid into trouble in the years before it was borged by Pacific. The Schwinn name is now just a marketing label IMO. Still, for $199, what road bike exists to compete with it? If you can go just slightly higher, I would suggest that a $249 hybrid, available at many bicycle shops and (hopefully, though not always... shops do vary, but we're not all as bad as one poster believes) a high-quality assembly job. Plus a typically free 30-day check, on-site repair work, etc. No, it's not a "road" bike, but it does a better job at being what it looks like it is. A very functional bike that's reasonably efficient and will last much longer than its department-store brethren. *Properly* assembled, it's probably not a completely horrible POS, and it might just get someone of limited means on to a bike. Fit is an issue that a retailer like Wal-Mart is utterly unprepared to deal with in a bike. Clothing and shoes, sure; the customer knows what the sizes are about in that area, and all Wal-Mart must do is put them on the rack. How many typical Wal-Mart customers would pick the right size of bike if it was sitting there? My guess is "not many". But they take care of the sizing issue quite nicely, by only making one size. :) Yes, in a perfect world, people (both in the company and its customer base) would care about that, and there would be a guide to fit guesstimation, a salescritter who knew what it meant and had the ability to assits the custoemr by explaining it in words of less than one syllable, and a selection of frame sizes. In the real world of what's possible in a market with limited demand for road bikes, zero comprehension of them by the average Wal-Mart customer, and no talent in the sales force, it's bloody well amazing that they have two bikes that look like a roadie at all. There's a certain irony that a move towards "road" bikes makes sizing much more of an issue (than it is with "mountain" bikes). If *Mart applied any intelligence toward selling bikes that would be more practical for the customer, they'd stick to hybrid or mountain-style bikes, with low, relatively-short top tubes and highly adjustable stems. But that's not what they do. They sell BSOs- bike shaped objects- because they look like the more expensive, more durable bikes seen in bicycle shops. --Mike Jacoubowsky Chain Reaction Bicycles www.ChainReaction.com Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA |
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2006 Schwinn Varsity at Wal*Mart
And in the case of the Denali, any discerning cyclist would have the firm association of that name with "cheap and cheesy". In the case of the Denali bike, I'd rather try my luck with a Yugo. I still wonder whose foolish idea it was to brand a *road bike* with the name of something that's bloated, huge, inefficient, lumbering, incredibly heavy, and exemplary of everything that a road bike is *not*. On first encounter, my inherent reaction was "Well, if you're trying to find a way to tell me that this bike's exactly what I don't want, you couldn't have picked a much better name." How do you know they didn't name it after the mountain in Alaska? |
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