We Bought A $248 Entry Level Bike in 2023 - Too Cheap?

Something I didn’t think of pointed out by @egyeneskifli7808 in the comments: The frame being steel means you could have the steel derailleur hanger re-welded if it were to break. A fairly low cost solution, but would probably entail a trip to both a welder & then a subsequent trip to a bike shop for straightening/tuning if you weren’t confident in doing it yourself.

So as a Walmart employee--and one who spent eight full years of my life during the previous decade as a Walmart bike assembler--I think this is a reasonable review of the strengths and weaknesses of this particular bike and for starters, thanks for not bashing down a mountain slope and acting surprised that it didn't make it and then returning it for a full refund, I found those types of YouTube vids on other cycling channels to be the most inane and self-serving of all time, like get a life, not a refund for destroying a bicycle that a lot of kids would love to get because they won't be getting anything else until they have their own money. And about the spokes or brakes or whatever, every single bike sold by Walmart rolls off assembly lines in China, not Taiwan or Japan or anywhere else but China, so China exclusively manufactures these low-priced bikes and, for the bike to be properly prepared for sale, it takes a Walmart or third-party assembler with skill and care to correct problems like untrue wheels or brakes which do not actuate properly, yikes. And I was an assembler who properly prepared bikes for sale and that's what brought me to cycling YouTube channels, I was looking for community among bike mechanics and assemblers and i found that and a whole lot more, including you, Francis, and woohoo, one of your loyal supporters is a Walmart guy in this season of my life. And ultimate, it is the consumer who keeps these entry-level bikes popular, not Walmart or China or whatever. People are simply not willing to pay all that much for a bicycle at first, either for themselves or their kids. Yet, hopefully they stick with it and realize, hmm, there's a big world of lots of bikes out there. And e-bikes are doing that in a massive way these days, lots of non-cyclists are getting e-bikes to get around and that works, it is making more people mount two-wheeled transport and hopefully they become true cyclists, too. But wow, lots of e-bike riders are as rude and crude as they can be toward us, acting all high and mighty on their silent motorcycles and O well, somebody had to put us in our place and make us feel like losers for actually pedaling our bikes. 😀

upgrade the bikes to a certain budget and race it, and please do not do what the GCN guy did very unrealisitc adding a dura ace crank.

Pretty amazing that Walmart is providing a safe, affordable, and reliable entry level into road and gravel. Most people buying these are riding around the suburbs to a park with their kids or any easy ride on flat paths. No bottle cage mounts is crazy though!

I have that bike. Bought it to get back into riding and it fit my budget. I do plan on upgrading a few things over time on it but overall I like it.

These types of bikes have their niche and clientele. I got the Kent Bohe (also a Walmart bike) and I am perfectly happy with it. For the level of athlete that I am, I do not need an expensive bike. I would not spend much money knowing I am not using the tool to its full potential. And I got the bike only because I pushed the kids to be more active during the pandemic. My wife also picked up biking (she learned 3 years ago) so when I ride, I don't ride with a "serious" group but with my wife and kids. I am not demanding much from the bike. I got a milk crate on my bike, and I have carried watermelons and pizzas...that how serious it is. These are the type of bikes that introduces people to the sport and/or hobby, and because of that, we got to appreciate them. If these bikes gave a bad experience, they could actually drive people away. Yes, the second hand market is fertile with goods deal with "real" bikes (Fuji, Miyata, Nishiki, Schwinn, Raleigh, etc) but these "treasure hunts" are more for riders who really know what they want and are willing to wait years before they find it and are committed to check the posting every single day. At the end, they end up getting a 15+ year old bike for a rebuild or for nostalgia sake.... ...Normal people just want to go to the store, get a bike and ride it that afternoon. Other than a helmet and a pump, they are not getting anything else (no kit, no water cage, no gels, no pedals, no gloves, no shades, etc). These bikes are under many Christmas trees each year. As bad or cheap as they are, they should not be make fun of....many kids and adults could feel embarrassed and not want to ride anymore.

Love the video, guys. This bike reminds me of the old Puch 'Free Spirit' from back in the day, with the levers on the headset and extra brake levers on the handlebars. The Raleigh 'Tour of Britain' also had the dual levers. Before your time, I know! Keep up the great work.

With a frame like this you can probably add your own bottle cage screws on the frame and fork and add the screws on the top bar and add the screws for a rear rack

I have a Kent bohe 700c gravel bike that its MSRP is $348 but I bought it when it's on sale for $128 and it has all the proper "upgrades" to the $248 in this video. It has bottle cage bolts, separate derailleur hanger, l-twoo brake-shifters, tourney RD.  It's so cheap that of course it comes with some cheap parts. If you spend a couple hundred dollars to upgrade, for example, tires, brake calipers, saddle and chain, it can be a very solid entry level bike.  Still super heavy but safe and enjoyable. I say that because I still enjoy riding and commuting with this bike after I got a carbon frame Sram etap AXS bike for real cycling.

"WHAT KIND OF RACE, FRANCIS?!" 🤣 Yeah, Francis, drop us a clue!

I bought this bike from walmart in a box that I put together for 250usd. I love it. The stock peak bb5 clone brakes are good but I bought avid bb7 brakes for much easier adjustability. I have the bb5 adjusted well on the cross sub levers and the key is to get the outer brake pad close enough to the brake rotor and not having it rub. Make sure you back off all the barrel adjusters off first. The brake actuator arm on the brake housing should be totally relaxed and then you screw in the cable bolt. From there, there is going to be some trial and error to adjust the outer brake pad to the rotor. Adjust one brake pad at a time and have the other all the way out so you can listen to only one brake pad rubbing on the rotor when brakes are relaxed. Once you have the outer brake pad dialed in and it's not rubbing on the rotor then work on the inner brake pad by screwing in the outer adjusting wheel using a hex key. Also, if it's hard to turn then back off the set screw in the brake housing because it's pushing on that adjusting wheel so that the wheel doesn't screw itself off. When done, screw in that set screw just enough to allow you to rotate the inner brake pad adjusting disk since you'll need it to make adjustments when the brakes wear over time. With the bb7 brakes, the outer brake pad can be adjusted and that takes out all the trial and error of bb5 setup. Before any of this work, make sure you true the disc rotor first so that it doesn't wobble as much because then you'll need more empty space between the brake pads and the rotor and your cross bar brake levers will probably bottom out before the brakes stop the wheel. For the cross brake levers to be adjusted well, you will need minimum space between the brake pads and the rotor and thus the rotor can't wobble too much. I find the back 140mm rotor to be lot stiffer than the front 160mm and thus adjusting the back brake is much easier. Make sure you take the slack of the 7 speed indexing derailer cable out first with pulling on the cable with pliers. The barrel adjuster should be retracted on the end of the derailer. Also, take out the slack of the friction shifter cable of the front derailer the same way. The front derailer doesn't have barrel adjuster. My front derailer only has two chain rings, the smallest is gone. I took off the plastic chain protector on the front derailer off as if the chain comes off it will be easier to put back on. The front derailer should shift gears when the friction lever is pulled all the way down because after the shift the lever will move back up a bit, which is normal. My front and rear gears shift great and I have zero problems. It's all in the setup as they say. The tubes come with shrader valves and if you get a presta valve tube then you'll need an adapter to put over the presta valve to take up the space of the larger shrader hole in the rim. If not then expect a tube blowout. If you ever need to take off the freewheel then use an impact wrench on the freewheel bolt. To put it back on, just snug it and start pedaling and it will auto screw itself in. Don't use the impact wrench to put it back on. I love the frame and the welds look great. The wheels are also heavy duty double walled and you can put rim brakes on those wheels as well if you wanted but they must be center mounted rim brakes because they have only one hole in the front and one hole in the back forks to mount them. Can't put in a V brake because there are no standoffs to mount them to. Lastly, I too ride with my hands on the top of the drop bar and rarely use the handles unless I'm sprinting. I love the look of drop bars and that's why I bought this bike. My tires are 35mm wide. I think you can put on a 40c tire as well and not run out of clearance in the forks. I think the rim is 21mm wide internally. One thing about the front derailer adjustment. Make sure that the derailer cage is centered over the chain when you're in each of the chain rings. Shimano suggests otherwise so don't go by their manual. They want the inner edge of the derailer cage to be 1mm from the chain and I disagree. The system seems to work best this way. Forgot to mention that you don't need the avid in-line barrel adjuster on the front or rear brakes because the cross brake levers have their own barrel adjusters. The main brake levers don't have barrel adjusters. Remember that the main brake levers pull the brake cable and the cross brake levers push the cable housing in order to move the brake cable. These are two different systems and that's why the cross brake levers are more difficult to setup right and need minimum free space between the brake pads and the rotor. The main brake levers don't care about this that much because even with more space, the levers won't hit the drop bars. I plan on using this bike stock other than installing the avid bb7 brakes. I will lube the caged bearings and might replace them with better balls and just toss out the cages. This bike needs nothing, imo. Maybe new chain once in a while so it doesn't wear out the freewheel and chain ring. But even so, they're cheap to replace.

You can get a cheaper bike from Decathlon than the one you brought and it starts to have a lot of compromises and weaknesses that you see on this bike. The Decathlon bike you got really is the base model entry point where a road bike has all the "similar" features of a £10K road bike. Where as something like this bike, just doesn't, friction shifters are the 90's, as are quill stems, not having bottle cages is just cheap, there is not really any other word for it. They haven't aimed to make a good bike there, they have aimed to make a cheap bike, that looks modern (hence discs), for the uninformed consumer.

When you do the Budget Bike Race you definitely need to put Nic on the Kent. It's practically a 1x since the chainrings are so similar.

Working in a bike shop where these bikes are very common here in the US, these bikes freaking suck. They break every five rides and people pay more upgrading and repairing than the price of the bike.

I use a Companion 1.0 gravel bike (from the danish chain Fri Bikeshop) as my daily commute bike. It was around 600 pounds on offer at the time I bought it. It has really impressed me. Shimano Sora, disc brakes (not hydraulic), good stiffness and ok weight. I love using it as my commuter or when riding trips with family or friends.

I just picked one of these up after returning a Hyper $148 bike before ever riding it that I realized was much too small for me. It had worse reviews than this, but I took this exact bike out for my first ride today and I will say it’s not too bad at all. It was super tempting to stretch myself and get into the $300 category but I’m just going to have to settle for this as I am not exactly made of money and I’m glad to see a review that states this is decent enough for the money to keep and not be disappointed about.

What I've noticed as I've begun to dive deeper into the biking world is that a lot of these budget bikes are really hybrid/ATB bikes in disguise. This particular Kent may not be a "true" gravel bike, but it would make for an excellent commuter for someone who might need to cut through the odd gravel trail every once in a while. In addition, the wider handlebars on this bike seem perfect for attaching a front pack if you remove the redundant brake levers, I think

You should do a direct comparison between this bike to a carrera bike from halfords from around the same price range. See what you can get for the same money.

I want to see you guys upgrade this thing to a "banger of a bike" like Jimmy says it can be. I think a lot of us are buying lower spec completes these days and then upgrading drive train, wheels, cockpit over time to make them the bike we wish we could have afforded to begin with. Probably not from this low of a spec though lol.

I would just put pursuit bars and upgrade the brakes, maybe an inexpensive hybrid hydraulic setup. I started cycling on these types and brand of bikes. They’re good for figuring out if cycling is for you and and great to use while I saved up to buy a pre-owned name brand bike.