As much as I dearly want to hate everything Walmart, especially their sorry excuses for bikes (or bike shaped objects), this bike, the Mongoose Paver, actually seems halfway decent!

It doesn’t have any of the typical heavy worthless suspension, has 700C wheels, nice swept back bars, simple drivetrain with single chainring up front and a rear rack. For a little over $100 bucks, this may be a good choice for extremely frugal bike buyers; whatever it takes to get someone on a bike I say.

Despite this bikes advantages over previous bike models sold by the big box stores, this bike will still suffer from the drawbacks. The first glaring deficiency of this bike is that it will still be assembled by minimum wage cashier jockeys at your local Walmart store who, in all honesty, have no CLUE how to put together a bike properly. I’ve serviced bike shaped objects at my shop that have had forks put on backwards, fasteners mysertiously missing, brake pads that are a mile apart and derailleurs that cant even shift because the limit screws are all wrong. Although this bike has potential, it ultimately is only as good as the lackie at Walmart who is putting it together.

Link to Walmart product page for Mongoose Paver

Article: Walmart opens a “real” bike shop in Texas

Discussion about this bike on Bikeforums.net