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Can anyone figure out why it's so expensive? Here's a fancier-looking 26" bicycle on walmart.com for $79.97 - $249.00. [1] [1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Ro

Can anyone figure out why it's so expensive? Here's a fancier-looking 26" bicycle on walmart.com for $79.97 - $249.00. [1] [1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Roadmaster-Granite-Peak-Men-s-Mountain-Bike/51233650 https://www.walmart.com/ip/26-Roadmaster-Granite-Peak-Men-s-...

dsr_ 10y ago
25 year frame warranty, 10 year belt warranty. Basically, the cost of replacing it three times is built into the price.
antfarm 10y ago
The IKEA bike has a belt drive, disk brakes, aluminum frame, automatic 2-gear system, etc. The one from walmart.com is just plain cheap and low quality, nothing fancy about it.
- collyw 10y ago
  Belt drive - I can't see much advantage to that. Aluminium frame - probably the Wallmart ones are as well. Disk brakes - cheap V brakes would be fine for the sort of cycling you will do on that thing. (This seems to have the cheaper cable pull disk brakes, rather than more powerful hydraulic ones). 2 gear system - hardly worth having only two gears in my opinion. Maybe it's just because I am a bit of a bike snob with a fairly decent mountain bike, but I thought this looked pretty expensive for the type of riding it would be used for.
  - tomatsu 10y ago
    > Belt drive - I can't see much advantage to that. Maintenance-free, always as efficient as a properly lubed chain, clean, and quiet. They are fantastic for commuter bikes. > cheap V brakes would be fine Disc brakes are unaffected by wet/muddy rims. > This seems to have the cheaper cable pull disk brakes Mechanical disc brakes are perfectly fine for road bikes. They require less maintenance, too. They are very simple. > 2 gear system - hardly worth having only two gears in my opinion. IGHs also require less maintenance than a derailleur. 2 gears isn't much, but I'd rather take that than a single-speed one. I would have preferred a manual 5-gear IGH, though.
woodruffw 10y ago
Walmart and other big-box store bicycles are infamous in the cycling community for their poor quality and assembly, often to the point of being completely unsafe to ride at any speed (Nader reference intended). They often use the cheapest high-tensile steel they can find, off-brand rims, mix-and-match groupsets, low-quality brakes, and so forth. The bike you linked exemplifies that - mixed Shimano/SRAM components and "alloy wheels" are in its description. Box-store bikes are also never put together correctly - flipped forks, pinched inner tubes, and sheared screws/bolts abound when they come in for repairs. Comparing these two bicycles directly, the big things that stand out as pros are the Sladda's aluminum frame and disc brakes. An internal gear hub is also a nice low-maintenance touch. It remains to be be seen how well the Sladda holds up, but $400-500 isn't too unreasonable for a aluminum city-cruiser that's been ruggedized.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  >completely unsafe to ride at any speed I can attest this is not the case. All I,and everyone who are not cyclists,have ever rode are cheap Wal-Mart bikes. Even when I used to do stupid stuff like jump them and fly down hills, I've never had a structural failure occur.
  - woodruffw 10y ago
    I'm obviously exaggerating. One of the things I recommend when a friend or acquaintance buys a box-store bike (after ignoring my initial recommendation not to buy one) is to immediately take it to a bike shop to be reassembled and re-tuned. With a proper tuning and assembly, they become substantially safer. That being said, your experience is a fortunate one. It takes only half a turn in either direction on the headset washers to result in a failure that can break your collarbone. I've seen it firsthand.
- cbr 10y ago
  mixed Shimano/SRAM components Is this an actual problem, or just something someone only would do if they were heavily trying to minimize cost?
yupyupp 10y ago
Like others said, the frame material is a huge part of the cost/value difference. But I'll also point out the fact that the IKEA bike is powder coated, has a belt drive, a coaster break, a disk break, and an internal gear hub. That combination of components makes this bike basically maintenance free. If this bike was left on a bike rack outside a college dorm for a school year it would be perfectly fine; the same can't be said about the Walmart bike. Glace at any bike rack at a college campus and you'll know what I mean.
- cbr 10y ago
  If this bike was left on a bike rack outside a college dorm for a school year it would be perfectly fine To be fair, it would probably be stolen.
  - chrisper 10y ago
    Not really. At my school they have bike cages. Basically, the bike racks are inside a cage that you need a key for.
Eridrus 10y ago
I bought one of those cheap bikes for Burning Man with the expectation it would get trashed. The steering screws came apart every day and I had to carry a screw driver with me to routinely fix it. It was fine for burning man, but I would not have driven that thing on a road.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
I had a walmart bike once, the seat pipe broke as I was riding it.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Do you mean the post (easy to replace) or the tube (part of the frame, probably unfixable)?
bane 10y ago
I grew up with a slew of craptastic second hand, thrift store and K-Mart level bikes since it was all we could afford (and as I grew, the bikes grew). We used to beat the living snot out of those bikes and I don't remember any of them costing more than $150 new and they either never broke or were easy to repair. I would expect to pay no more than around $300 for a similar quality of bike these days. The last time I walked into a bike shop I turned right around and walked out. Since when did bikes get so unbelievably expensive? I just wanted one for tooting around the neighborhood and maybe popping a curb or two, and the cheapest I could find was around $500. Most were easily in the $1000-$3000 range. I think younger people have been trained that bikes need to be expensive but unless you're doing some very very intensive mountain biking or road racing you probably will never encounter a problem with a Walmart-class bike. Every year Costco sells some bikes for around $300-$400 and they're in the class that I care about. Probably "better" than Walmart, but not these outrageous prices in bike stores. IKEA quality is also often very questionable, the "Family" price seems closer to reasonable. $400 otherwise? No way. I really just want a Hyundai Elantra bike, not a BMW M3 or a Ferrari.
- geon 10y ago
  It feels quite obvious that a specialized bike store would focus on the more hard core end of the spectrum, since otherwise they would need to compete with wallmart and costco.
  - xapata 10y ago
    That may be your intuition, but I wouldn't describe riding a few miles in the city at a casual pace as "hard core" (my typical ride).
- mwill 10y ago
  Me and my friends used to buy the cheapest bikes we could out in rural Australia, as low as $50 AUD. We would flog them in the ground for a month or so, when they finally gave out left them right where they broke, and went bought another one. No one wanted a good bike because a good bike was too good not to fix, and no one had the money to fix a good bike. It was also the kind of town where if you had a good bike, it would get stolen for sure.
thekevan 10y ago
I am actually a fan of sub $100 bikes but I can also mess and tinker with them. I think here's a big part of the difference: "It’s a belt driven automatic 2 speed integrated into the rear hub. The belt drive eliminates need for chain maintenance meaning it’s open to people who know little about bikes or people who do not have the time to do so. Amazingly the belt itself is guaranteed for 10 years which is exceptional length of time to offer in our opinion! Along with a 25 year guarantee on the frame itself it speaks volumes about how this bike was built to last!"
- collyw 10y ago
  I have been riding bikes since I was a kid and still do. Seen one case of frame failure (or a fairly expensive enduro mountain bike that was used for downhill).
tritosomal 10y ago
I bought a bike from Target over the summer for $100. It has: broken one chain suffered multiple rear brake failures unfastened the handle bars so they dangle from the fork All of these things happened while miles from home, and required tools for repair. When one thing was fixed, another thing broke. The brakes failed repeatedly, and warranted full replacement. The handle bars are especially treacherous, because putting weight on them risks failure, and then steering becomes impossible. Accessories and repairs now outweigh the original cost of the bike, meaning I'm looking at over $300 all-in. Meanwhile, this thing feels like it will eventually cost me some teeth.
- xapata 10y ago
  Go get something cheap (but a real brand) off Craigslist. Watch some YouTube videos on how to tune it up. Buy some lube for the chain ($4).
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  Anything from Walmart/Target or anything that is not a real bike shop is going to be incredibly low quality. Best off going on Craigslist and buying something (probably japanese) from the mid to late 1980s that was at one point a good quality bike. Get something with chromoly steel. It will be a lot more reliable and bike mechanics and you will be better able to fix it. It'll have all ISO standard parts.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Target and WalMart know that the average American rides a bike no more than 10 miles a year. Their bikes can do just about that. If you plan on more than going around the block, the lesson is buy a real bike, from a bike shop.
  - tritosomal 10y ago
    Wow, you know, this is probably the most accurate conclusion. I've probably put about 20 or 30 ten mile trips on it, and the frequency of failure cropped up maybe every 5 trips. I chalked it up to poor assembly by a new guy on a Monday morning. Considering this model of assessment, I realize that department store bikes aren't measured with the same sort of warranty ratings as perhaps cars. Too bad bikes don't use the same sort of 100,000 mile power train warranty as a mark of quality or durability.
alkonaut 10y ago
Fancy looking? The IKEA one has an Al frame with 25y warranty. A belt drive (more expensive than chain), front disk brake and internal rear gear hub (more expensive than cheap external derailleur). If you look closer the IKEA bike looks much fancier. It's not hard to make a bike at $250, it's hard to make a good bike at $400.
wishinghand 10y ago
So expensive? I'm trying to figure out why you think you can get what this bike offers for less than $500 elsewhere.
Eric_WVGG 10y ago
"Fancier-looking" in the same way that a dell laptop covered in blue leds looks fancier than a MacBook... Taste aside, those walmart bikes are the biking equivalent of a Ford Pinto. Plenty of folks bought them and did just fine, plenty of others had engine fires. The Sladda is a little expensive, but there is real value to the convenience of just walking in and buying "bicycle" without having to deal with the salespeople and misanthropes who staff most bike shops. Or computer stores, to circle back... between the pared down selection, and paying a bit of a premium for a great warranty and a familiar name, and quibbles from industry types about superior specs from companies civvies have never heard of with, this feels very Apple Store. Not for me, but I'd suggest one to my parents with no hesitation.
Illotus 10y ago
It is incredibly cheap for a belt drive. I've no idea if things have changed in the last couple of years, but I think cheapest I found in 2014 was around 1000€ in Europe.
analog31 10y ago
To me, it seems like a marketing and branding exercise. Mainstream bikes are generic. You send a list of frame dimensions, colors, and components, to a factory in China, and they make some bikes for you. It's like getting circuit boards made. It may seem expensive unless the value of the Ikea brand is considered. In fact, this would be just another of many "city" bikes to emerge on the market, and is only newsworthy because it's Ikea. They may be able to tap into a market for people who wouldn't go into a bike shop, but who would look through the Ikea catalog. I remember LL Bean selling bikes many years ago.
riffic 10y ago
500 dollars is not expensive for a quality bicycle.

dsr_ 10y ago

25 year frame warranty, 10 year belt warranty. Basically, the cost of replacing it three times is built into the price.

antfarm 10y ago

The IKEA bike has a belt drive, disk brakes, aluminum frame, automatic 2-gear system, etc. The one from walmart.com is just plain cheap and low quality, nothing fancy about it.

collyw 10y ago
Belt drive - I can't see much advantage to that. Aluminium frame - probably the Wallmart ones are as well. Disk brakes - cheap V brakes would be fine for the sort of cycling you will do on that thing. (This seems to have the cheaper cable pull disk brakes, rather than more powerful hydraulic ones). 2 gear system - hardly worth having only two gears in my opinion. Maybe it's just because I am a bit of a bike snob with a fairly decent mountain bike, but I thought this looked pretty expensive for the type of riding it would be used for.
- tomatsu 10y ago
  > Belt drive - I can't see much advantage to that. Maintenance-free, always as efficient as a properly lubed chain, clean, and quiet. They are fantastic for commuter bikes. > cheap V brakes would be fine Disc brakes are unaffected by wet/muddy rims. > This seems to have the cheaper cable pull disk brakes Mechanical disc brakes are perfectly fine for road bikes. They require less maintenance, too. They are very simple. > 2 gear system - hardly worth having only two gears in my opinion. IGHs also require less maintenance than a derailleur. 2 gears isn't much, but I'd rather take that than a single-speed one. I would have preferred a manual 5-gear IGH, though.

woodruffw 10y ago

Walmart and other big-box store bicycles are infamous in the cycling community for their poor quality and assembly, often to the point of being completely unsafe to ride at any speed (Nader reference intended). They often use the cheapest high-tensile steel they can find, off-brand rims, mix-and-match groupsets, low-quality brakes, and so forth. The bike you linked exemplifies that - mixed Shimano/SRAM components and "alloy wheels" are in its description. Box-store bikes are also never put together correctly - flipped forks, pinched inner tubes, and sheared screws/bolts abound when they come in for repairs. Comparing these two bicycles directly, the big things that stand out as pros are the Sladda's aluminum frame and disc brakes. An internal gear hub is also a nice low-maintenance touch. It remains to be be seen how well the Sladda holds up, but $400-500 isn't too unreasonable for a aluminum city-cruiser that's been ruggedized.

alistproducer2 10y ago
>completely unsafe to ride at any speed I can attest this is not the case. All I,and everyone who are not cyclists,have ever rode are cheap Wal-Mart bikes. Even when I used to do stupid stuff like jump them and fly down hills, I've never had a structural failure occur.
- woodruffw 10y ago
  I'm obviously exaggerating. One of the things I recommend when a friend or acquaintance buys a box-store bike (after ignoring my initial recommendation not to buy one) is to immediately take it to a bike shop to be reassembled and re-tuned. With a proper tuning and assembly, they become substantially safer. That being said, your experience is a fortunate one. It takes only half a turn in either direction on the headset washers to result in a failure that can break your collarbone. I've seen it firsthand.
cbr 10y ago
mixed Shimano/SRAM components Is this an actual problem, or just something someone only would do if they were heavily trying to minimize cost?

yupyupp 10y ago

Like others said, the frame material is a huge part of the cost/value difference. But I'll also point out the fact that the IKEA bike is powder coated, has a belt drive, a coaster break, a disk break, and an internal gear hub. That combination of components makes this bike basically maintenance free. If this bike was left on a bike rack outside a college dorm for a school year it would be perfectly fine; the same can't be said about the Walmart bike. Glace at any bike rack at a college campus and you'll know what I mean.

cbr 10y ago
If this bike was left on a bike rack outside a college dorm for a school year it would be perfectly fine To be fair, it would probably be stolen.
- chrisper 10y ago
  Not really. At my school they have bike cages. Basically, the bike racks are inside a cage that you need a key for.

Eridrus 10y ago

I bought one of those cheap bikes for Burning Man with the expectation it would get trashed. The steering screws came apart every day and I had to carry a screw driver with me to routinely fix it. It was fine for burning man, but I would not have driven that thing on a road.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

I had a walmart bike once, the seat pipe broke as I was riding it.

jessaustin 10y ago
Do you mean the post (easy to replace) or the tube (part of the frame, probably unfixable)?

bane 10y ago

I grew up with a slew of craptastic second hand, thrift store and K-Mart level bikes since it was all we could afford (and as I grew, the bikes grew). We used to beat the living snot out of those bikes and I don't remember any of them costing more than $150 new and they either never broke or were easy to repair. I would expect to pay no more than around $300 for a similar quality of bike these days. The last time I walked into a bike shop I turned right around and walked out. Since when did bikes get so unbelievably expensive? I just wanted one for tooting around the neighborhood and maybe popping a curb or two, and the cheapest I could find was around $500. Most were easily in the $1000-$3000 range. I think younger people have been trained that bikes need to be expensive but unless you're doing some very very intensive mountain biking or road racing you probably will never encounter a problem with a Walmart-class bike. Every year Costco sells some bikes for around $300-$400 and they're in the class that I care about. Probably "better" than Walmart, but not these outrageous prices in bike stores. IKEA quality is also often very questionable, the "Family" price seems closer to reasonable. $400 otherwise? No way. I really just want a Hyundai Elantra bike, not a BMW M3 or a Ferrari.

geon 10y ago
It feels quite obvious that a specialized bike store would focus on the more hard core end of the spectrum, since otherwise they would need to compete with wallmart and costco.
- xapata 10y ago
  That may be your intuition, but I wouldn't describe riding a few miles in the city at a casual pace as "hard core" (my typical ride).
mwill 10y ago
Me and my friends used to buy the cheapest bikes we could out in rural Australia, as low as $50 AUD. We would flog them in the ground for a month or so, when they finally gave out left them right where they broke, and went bought another one. No one wanted a good bike because a good bike was too good not to fix, and no one had the money to fix a good bike. It was also the kind of town where if you had a good bike, it would get stolen for sure.

thekevan 10y ago

I am actually a fan of sub $100 bikes but I can also mess and tinker with them. I think here's a big part of the difference: "It’s a belt driven automatic 2 speed integrated into the rear hub. The belt drive eliminates need for chain maintenance meaning it’s open to people who know little about bikes or people who do not have the time to do so. Amazingly the belt itself is guaranteed for 10 years which is exceptional length of time to offer in our opinion! Along with a 25 year guarantee on the frame itself it speaks volumes about how this bike was built to last!"

collyw 10y ago
I have been riding bikes since I was a kid and still do. Seen one case of frame failure (or a fairly expensive enduro mountain bike that was used for downhill).

tritosomal 10y ago

I bought a bike from Target over the summer for $100. It has: broken one chain suffered multiple rear brake failures unfastened the handle bars so they dangle from the fork All of these things happened while miles from home, and required tools for repair. When one thing was fixed, another thing broke. The brakes failed repeatedly, and warranted full replacement. The handle bars are especially treacherous, because putting weight on them risks failure, and then steering becomes impossible. Accessories and repairs now outweigh the original cost of the bike, meaning I'm looking at over $300 all-in. Meanwhile, this thing feels like it will eventually cost me some teeth.

xapata 10y ago
Go get something cheap (but a real brand) off Craigslist. Watch some YouTube videos on how to tune it up. Buy some lube for the chain ($4).
Tiktaalik 10y ago
Anything from Walmart/Target or anything that is not a real bike shop is going to be incredibly low quality. Best off going on Craigslist and buying something (probably japanese) from the mid to late 1980s that was at one point a good quality bike. Get something with chromoly steel. It will be a lot more reliable and bike mechanics and you will be better able to fix it. It'll have all ISO standard parts.
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Target and WalMart know that the average American rides a bike no more than 10 miles a year. Their bikes can do just about that. If you plan on more than going around the block, the lesson is buy a real bike, from a bike shop.
- tritosomal 10y ago
  Wow, you know, this is probably the most accurate conclusion. I've probably put about 20 or 30 ten mile trips on it, and the frequency of failure cropped up maybe every 5 trips. I chalked it up to poor assembly by a new guy on a Monday morning. Considering this model of assessment, I realize that department store bikes aren't measured with the same sort of warranty ratings as perhaps cars. Too bad bikes don't use the same sort of 100,000 mile power train warranty as a mark of quality or durability.

alkonaut 10y ago

Fancy looking? The IKEA one has an Al frame with 25y warranty. A belt drive (more expensive than chain), front disk brake and internal rear gear hub (more expensive than cheap external derailleur). If you look closer the IKEA bike looks much fancier. It's not hard to make a bike at $250, it's hard to make a good bike at $400.

wishinghand 10y ago

So expensive? I'm trying to figure out why you think you can get what this bike offers for less than $500 elsewhere.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

"Fancier-looking" in the same way that a dell laptop covered in blue leds looks fancier than a MacBook... Taste aside, those walmart bikes are the biking equivalent of a Ford Pinto. Plenty of folks bought them and did just fine, plenty of others had engine fires. The Sladda is a little expensive, but there is real value to the convenience of just walking in and buying "bicycle" without having to deal with the salespeople and misanthropes who staff most bike shops. Or computer stores, to circle back... between the pared down selection, and paying a bit of a premium for a great warranty and a familiar name, and quibbles from industry types about superior specs from companies civvies have never heard of with, this feels very Apple Store. Not for me, but I'd suggest one to my parents with no hesitation.

Illotus 10y ago

It is incredibly cheap for a belt drive. I've no idea if things have changed in the last couple of years, but I think cheapest I found in 2014 was around 1000€ in Europe.

analog31 10y ago

To me, it seems like a marketing and branding exercise. Mainstream bikes are generic. You send a list of frame dimensions, colors, and components, to a factory in China, and they make some bikes for you. It's like getting circuit boards made. It may seem expensive unless the value of the Ikea brand is considered. In fact, this would be just another of many "city" bikes to emerge on the market, and is only newsworthy because it's Ikea. They may be able to tap into a market for people who wouldn't go into a bike shop, but who would look through the Ikea catalog. I remember LL Bean selling bikes many years ago.

riffic 10y ago

500 dollars is not expensive for a quality bicycle.