This Walmart MTB looks incredible, but is it really?

time flies it was almost seven years ago that i first posted a video where we tested a walmart bike here in the united states walmart is a big store that sells towels staplers and bicycles and we bought one of those bicycles for about 150 bucks and i put it through a series of tests and since then the whole internet has kind of been fascinated with these bikes because they are so cheap and they're not that good so being that so much time has elapsed since 2015 i thought that today here in 2022 we'd do it again and see if they've changed and i think they have based on this bike i saw this bike the other day in hendersonville walmart and i damn near broke my neck giving it a double take i couldn't believe what i was seeing it's like they answered every single concern that i've ever had about a department store bike it looks amazing it ticks all the boxes or at least it does at first glance there are a lot of asterisks but we are going to go over it today in detail i'm going to tell you whether this is a good bike to buy so first of all this is indeed available in the store if you have like a flagship walmart store this is probably there you can literally pull this bike off the shelf wheel it up to the register scan it and ride it out the door although i don't recommend you do that because i almost didn't make it to my car with this bike okay so i squeezed the brake and nothing happened there's no way that they check the shifting because i mean this is just completely out why do i keep doing this now before we get into all that let me tell you what i like about it [Music] my criticism of department store bikes was never that they're cheap if an immigrant moves here to the united states and they have 300 to their name i want them to be able to buy something simple and reliable to get to work with i'm a cycling advocate but that's not what department stores have offered let's say you have five dollars to get a meal you could have an awesome hot dog or a terrible lobster and that's what they try to do they put full suspension on these bikes they put all sorts of gears on them it makes for a heavier bike with more failure points more things that can go wrong it's bad for the consumer but that's what the consumer demands more features for the money more is more so when i saw this bike i couldn't believe that it has a lot less indeed this is by far the most rational bike i've ever seen in a department store even the paint scheme is rational usually they're called like the trouble the harassment and this one doesn't even have anything written on it there's a little kent badge on the front it actually it looks good instead of 21 speeds it has a very simple and reliable 1x9 by microshift a reputable company it is by far the most expensive bike in the store at 398 yet it has the least features it doesn't have rear suspension it is a hardtail and in fact it has a name brand sr suntor fork in the front which is rated for cross country so it's a real mountain bike fork it's got a nice short stem modern geometry wide handlebars it even has a tapered head tube even the brakes are mechanical disc they put a 160 millimeter rotor in the rear and a 180 in the front that's pretty smart because these 29 inch wheels have a lot of leverage and they're wrapped in good tires they're made by cst that's maxis and indeed they're fat tires they have a good compound the mold looks good the bike even has internal cable routing it's like they try to make the perfect hardtail at the perfect price but like i said there are a lot of asterisks and we're gonna go over them despite all these indicators that this is a good bike there's a little sticker here that may concern you and it says this bicycle is not designed for off-road use doesn't say not designed for mountain biking doesn't say not designed for jumps they don't even want you to take this off-road why is that so i can't get into their heads and tell you for sure what the reason is but i think i know why a bike with mountain bike tires a good mountain bike fork mountain bike drive train mountain bike geometry would not be designed for off-road use and that is the last thing they want you to do is buy this from walmart and drop into a mountain bike trail right after that is the last thing they want to do because despite this having some pretty good parts on it they don't know who assembled it now while most of these parts come out of the same factories as a lot of our bike parts come out of they arrive at the store partially assembled and then an assembler puts them together and indeed it is a well understood fact in the cycling community that these bikes are not assembled the best today we're gonna find out what kind of assembler put this one together second i left the store started riding downhill to my car went to kind of pop a manual grip started turning around now the assembler at walmart isn't the one who puts this grip on i think it's actually done at the factory but they didn't check to see if it was like that and the last person who touches the bike should really make sure it's safe that's not the only problem [Music] yeah we're gonna we're gonna have to address that that wouldn't do anything too unsafe it would just uh sodomize you let me get some more leverage come on okay we got her oh it's stripped out here's a set of bontrager grips i took off that flip bike we know they're going to be fine so we'll put these on the bike ooh headset's loose and while we're at it we can straighten out these handlebars snug this back up as you can see the stem clamp is not tightened evenly it's off by a millimeter now that might not seem like much but we're not talking about wood here we're talking about metal you know that sucks okay now we're even all right let's get it up on the stand for tune-up i see no reason why we wouldn't be able to get it running really good it's got a micro shift drivetrain it's a good affordable drivetrain but it's making a lot of noise because they routed the chain incorrectly check this out the chain is routed underneath this piece of metal so as we're pedaling it's just completely rubbing against that piece of metal so let me be clear this is not something that the assembler would have done this would have already been routed in the factory and they did it wrong really really wrong this is something that a consumer would probably not catch especially if they're inexperienced with bikes and they definitely wouldn't have the tools to fix it you need master link pliers and you need to know how to route a chain through a derailleur and that affects the longevity of the drivetrain it affects wear on the chain it affects the the shifting performance noise resistance i've never seen that on a bike from the factory but for us it's going to be simple to fix ah way better that's what it's supposed to sound like bike is looking better let's take off this kickstand [Music] [Music] okay [Music] all right now looks like a regular bike now it's pretty plain to see why they don't recommend you take this bike off road to be honest i would see why they might not even recommend you take it in the street the assembly both at the factory and at walmart but now that we've gone over it and corrected all the problems with it the main ones being the grips the stem the improperly routed chain i think it's safe to take off road and so i'm gonna take it for a quick little rip around burn peak and then if it holds up in a later video we will take it on a real mountain bike ride the other thing is i'm gonna have trouble riding this bike because it's quite large large for me this is only sold in one size i even looked online it's just a single size you're gonna sell a bike that cheap there needs to be economies of scale they need to make enough of them so having three different frame sizes just not possible at this price point the other thing is they actually mislabeled the bike in the store they said six foot and up a six foot tall person would barely fit on this bike it'd be too small for them when i looked at it online it said five six two six feet so they labeled it six feet and up in the store they label it something else online and i can tell just by looking at it it's like a 19 inch frame it's not going to be good for let's say shaquille o'neal so let me suit up bike feels a little big for me but i think i will be able to ride it just fine [Music] [Music] i have no doubt that you could take this bike out into the forest and go on a real mountain bike ride with it like for sure no rattles nothing shook loose for 400 this punch is above its weight so believe it or not but the test that i just gave it out there with all those jumps and features that wasn't as abusive as a actual descent like a long mountain bike descent and so that's where we're really going to find out what this thing is made of but from that short little test i can say this is a pretty good buy with a huge asterisk and that is that you are experienced and comfortable enough working on bikes that you can check it out yourself or bring it to a professional bike mechanic so if you're between five six and six feet tall you're really comfortable with working on bikes and you don't place a particularly high value on your life then i guess i could recommend this bike officially but i can't wait to take this out into the forest on a real mountain bike trail i hope you learned something today i hope you find this information useful and if not i hope you're at least entertained thanks for riding with me today and i'll see you next time [Music] it's doing donuts it's spot cleaning

Channel: Berm Peak Express

Views: 1,753,799

Keywords: diy, tools, home, backyard, mountain biking, cycling, outdoors, biking, bike repair, walmart bike, bicycles, mountain bike, bike jump

Id: 7UmOzPopJNE

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022