I had a Shimano bike as a teenager and it was great, the breaks were amazing and I loved riding it until it got stolen right in front of a bank security guard. I still think about the bike.
You probably owned one of these retail store bikes who were often plastered with various shimano stickers for being equipped with their cheapest tourney transmission.
While at the very lowest end of the spectrum some of what we call bikes are really bicycle shape objects, you don't need an expensive bike to have a good time on the bike.
While on holidays, I once rented what looked to be a very cheap alu road bike, with the lowest end shimano transmission, heavy wheels and low end tires. My regular road bike at the time was a Festka custom road bike whose total price would have been north of 8k€ with much more gears and gear range, better brakes, super supple tubular tires. Yet I had the time of my life on that cheap rental bike.
You said it, you were a teenager. It was the right bike for you at the right time of your life and it was probably even easier for you to enjoy it if you didn't have any point of comparison.
The actual ride matters much more than the actual bike one is riding it on. People tend to obsess too much on equipment in the cycling word, even more so these days when online cycling medias are constantly reminding peoole how much watts them would save by using this over that.
archerx · · focus · HN ↗
prmoustache · · focus · HN ↗
You probably owned one of these retail store bikes who were often plastered with various shimano stickers for being equipped with their cheapest tourney transmission.
archerx · · focus · HN ↗
prmoustache · · focus · HN ↗
While on holidays, I once rented what looked to be a very cheap alu road bike, with the lowest end shimano transmission, heavy wheels and low end tires. My regular road bike at the time was a Festka custom road bike whose total price would have been north of 8k€ with much more gears and gear range, better brakes, super supple tubular tires. Yet I had the time of my life on that cheap rental bike. You said it, you were a teenager. It was the right bike for you at the right time of your life and it was probably even easier for you to enjoy it if you didn't have any point of comparison.
The actual ride matters much more than the actual bike one is riding it on. People tend to obsess too much on equipment in the cycling word, even more so these days when online cycling medias are constantly reminding peoole how much watts them would save by using this over that.