I found a bike at Wal-Mart (or Costco, or some other discount store) that has Shimano components, so its a good bike, right?
No. Shimano has a very wide range of components, from the absolute worst to some of the best. The “absolute worst” is what you’ll find on the discount-store bike. Also, the deraillers (the things that make the bike change gears) are often the only thing that’s Shimano. The gears themselves, the brakes, shifters, and most everything else will be made by some third-rate manufacturer, and you can expect these to break rather quickly unless you just ride the bike around the neighborhood from time to time. Some bike shops initially (and probably still) would refuse to work on these because there’s no way to make them work very well. This trend seems to be changing, as bike shops are finding that there’s pretty good business in fixing these bikes that break constantly.
