Schwinn Prelude Mens Bike OK?
Solid road bike. We got this for both my husband (6′1″) and myself (5′6″) and Schwinn Prelude Mens Bike fits fine for both of us. My seat is almost lowered all the way and his of course is higher. One of the front tires exploded in the first 2 minutes of the ride, so that was discouraging, but the others have held fine. Nice looking bike. Don’t forget to get a water bottle attachment!
Great bike for the money. This was my first actual bike after a number of years being on a crappy walmart bike that ended up falling apart while riding it. Anyways, being that this is my first road bike, I’m not going to be a very good judge of everything, but this bike seems to definentally be worth the $200 I have invested in it. It looks great and goes fast for costing as little as it does. People had mentioned making sure to go and get your bike tuned right off the bat which would be a very good idea, but what I ended up doing was just watching a bunch of youtube videos to figure out how to do it myself. After watching those, I was able to tune the bike myself fairly easily and for free since I already had the tools available. I think that watching those videos also helped with installing the front brake caliper since you get to see how it should work on other bikes and other people mentioned having trouble figuring out how to put it on. I have already encountered the problem of getting flats and happened to have both tires go flat on one of my first bike rides. I think it is more attributed to me going over a bump to fast, but noticed when I took the old tubes out that they had been pinched by the tire. I would recommend just making sure that the tube is correctly put into the tire and wheel assembly so you don’t have to “flintsone” your bike home. Overall, a great bike for the amount of money that it costs. I am sure that you could get a better bike by spending $600, but for what it’s worth, I’m just going to stick with this bike.
schwinn prelude: decent bike – stellar price. First off I do not give this bike a 5 star rating based on how wonderful it is. You need to spend Several thousand dollars for that bike. This gets a 5 star rating because it is not several thousand dollars yet it is an acceptable entry level road bike.
At just under 28 pounds it is 10 pounds heavier than a $4000 bike. Of course it is only a pound or 2 heavier than a $500 bike. And I argue that anyone riding an entry level bike has that on their own midsection anyway. If you are new to cycling you can get this and ride for a year before investing the big bucks while you decide if you like cycling and what you like and don’t like about a bike.
I bought mine directly from Target (on sale!) so I could get an idea of the size rather than buy on line. I noticed another reviewer said a person 5′ 10 – 6′2″ would be comfortable. I somewhat agree with the top end but I am 5′ 7 3/4″ and am comfortable on it. The seat post could still be dropped an other inch and a half but I would say that I am about as short as you could be to have the right body to bike geometry. Someone 5′6″ could ride it but I would not recommend it. I would say the same for someone 6′2″.
I have put 300 HARD miles on it. I bought it to train for my come back into triathlons (My last tri was in ‘87) but I have wound up using it as my daily driver pulling my 2 daughters in the bike trailer 280 of the 300 miles.
I store it the garage but it has been aloud to get wet frequently on rides. The dérailleurs have begun to rust as a result of wet conditions.
It has only had one problem since I bought it – the crank bearings began to click. This probably is a result of pulling 100 pounds regularly.
These bikes have a LIFETIME warrantee on parts!!! – I called the 800 number in the owners manual. They sent me a new bearing set and I installed them. The down side of this is that if you don’t have the tools you are in need of paying upwards to $50 for this repair.
If I continue to ride it next year I would upgrade the apt yet clunky bottom of the line shimano derailleurs. I would probably also get a lighter seat and possibly seat post or pedals.
EDIT
I have had it a year and 4 months now. I have decided that though it is rideable at 5′8″ it is too big for me. I also have become too competitive in triathlons to ride a low end bike. I have upgraded to the Schwinn Prologue (about 4 times as much $$$). The Prelude has given me no mechanical problems after releasing it from trailer pulling duty. It has a little less than 1000 miles on it. I did 2 triathlons on it 13th overall / 190 in my first and 2nd overall / 104 and in the next -both were age group wins. So you do not need a $4000 bike to compete.
EDIT 2 I have had this for 1 year and 11 months. Because I bought the new bike I haven’t put a lot more miles on this, but it has continued to do well with no further problems. I also realized the stem has a height adjustment. After moving the handlebars down and moving the seat forward this thing really fits my 5′8″ frame well. I put some new tires on it because I was upgrading my other bikes. The 700×23 schwalbe tires are a big improvement. I also replaced the rim strips with cloth because the cheap rubber protectors were shot allowing the rim to puncture the under side of the tubes.
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