What you do not know about bikes sold at the major chains
CCN – There is a reason why a bicycle purchased at a dedicated cycle shop like Circuit Cycle ride easier than their “big box store” equivalents. It has everything to do with how the bicycle arrives on the sales floor.
Recently, a job posting was released looking for “Bicycle Assembly Mechanics” to travel to large chain stores and receive new bicycles from distribution centres and assemble for sale. The posting called for people to take an average of 15 minutes to assemble a bike and place it on the floor. It made sense because big stores may bring in anywhere from 10 to 50 bicycles at one time. Even assembling ten bicycles, the mechanic would only be allowed three hours to complete the shipment and move to the next store.
It all sounded good until we realize that fifteen minutes is not enough time to properly prepare a bicycle to be ridden. That is if you want the bicycle to last more than three to fours years.
Assembling a bicycle from a manufacturer is “on the surface” an easy task. Pull it out of the box, attach the front wheel, slide on and tighten the seat post, attach the pedals and adjust the seat height and handle bars. That would take fifteen minutes,
But you may not know is this:
- Manufacturers do not adjust wheel axles, Bottom Brackets and Head Bearings. In fact, they are always too tight which promote advanced wear under average riding conditions.
- There is never enough grease on these parts. In fact, there is only enough grease to prevent rust to accumulate while the bike sits in the warehouse and is in transit. Add this problem to our first point, and see how long the bearings will last.
- Manufacturers typically use bearings in metal retainers. Retainers are metal rings that hold bearings into their set circumference. They allow the bicycle manufacturer to “quickly” assemble the bicycle for delivery. There are two issues with this:
- The retainers take space that can be used to add more bearings to the wheel hubs. More bearings mean better performance, less wear on the cone and races, and overall easier ride.
- The retainer themselves create friction. Combine that with the minimal grease, and it makes the big box store bike ride harder.
Bearings are only the beginning.
The time allotted for a bike assembly at big box stores, does not provide time for a Certified Bicycle Mechanic to verify that the wheels are true and that the spokes are tighten to proper specifications. In fact almost every wheel that is delivered from a manufacturer is tensioned to 75 to 80 kgf. (Kilograms of Force) Front wheels should be balanced so that each spoke is tensioned between 80 to 100 kgf with less than +/-5 kgf difference between each spoke, and the rear wheels tensioned to 100-120 kgf. Anything less can cause wheel rim fatigue which will lead to broken or bents spokes. If a rider is a heavy adult, chances are you can have wheel failure with spoke tensions too low. This becomes a safety issue.
The next time you are looking to purchasing a bicycle, look to Circuit Cycle & Sports. We prepare our new bicycles properly, which will ensure that you have many years of good riding with your chosen ride.
Image: Thanks to Daniel Oines