An Amusement & Diversion for The Genteel Cyclist. Daily.

Monday, August 13, 2007

The Wal-Mart of bike shops is... Wal-Mart?

You know, Constant Reader, how we feel about Dynacrap bikes -- those cheap department store models that are a blight on the land because they are badly built and no fun to ride and ultimately turn kids off to riding. In June, we reached a sort of apotheosis-- Skateboarder Tony Hawk (!) signed a deal with Dynacraft (makers of such fine brands as Magna and Vertical bikes) to introduce a whole new line of complete crap to the Targets and K-Marts of the world.

Well, but now there's this: Wal-Mart is going all Ultegra with this new $1900 ride...



What do you say to that, genteel cyclist? In our little corner of the world, we have a hard time believing that anyone looking to drop Two Gees on a road ride would darken the doorstep of a Wal-Mart. On the other hand, if Joe and Jane Sixpack begin to understand that a good dependable ride is worth a significant chunk of change, perhaps it spells the first letter in the epitaph of Dynacrap bikes.

(By the way, we're not saying a discount carbon frame equipped with Ultegra is a "good dependable ride." Actually, we'd never say that about carbon, but we're funny that way.)

2 comments:

Michael Lemberger said...

From Wal Mart's product page:

"Assembled in Country of Origin: Italy"

Who the...what the?!? Who's making these?!?

Pinchie said...

My guess is that it MUST be Bianchi... "Corsa" is a clue, but they're probably the only Italian company that could conceivably handle the "volume" that Wal-Mart requires.

They probably have a bunch of RC frames hanging around waiting to be rebranded... the shape of that downtube is awfully familiar...

Any other guesses?