Mongoose Placid Women Comfort Bike

The Mongoose® Placid women's comfort bike can easily be used for cruising around town with a suspension seat post and an anatomically padded sport saddle with springs. It includes an Element alloy crow front suspension, 21-speed SRAM shifting and front and rear alloy linear-pull brakes.
-Handcrafted alloy comfort frame
-Element alloy crown suspension fork
-21-speed SRAM 3.0 rear derailleur with SRAM 3.0 twist shifters
-Front & Rear alloy linear pull brakes
-36 hole silver anodized alloy rims

Reviews
Pitfalls of buying a bike online...
I purchased this bike a week ago. The bike is cute, and a good price (I should note you can buy a similar bike for a similar price, preassembled for free, at most local stores like Sports Authority). Amazon shipped it quickly and it arrived in good condition on Tuesday in a huge 50 pound box. The bike was packaged well, and compactly.

A little about me: I am a bike novice, who purchased this bike to tool around Washington, DC with (I don't have a car, so my main form of transportation is either the metro or the bus; I wanted to try a bike). I can put together Ikea furniture, no problem, but do not actually enjoy the process. I am by no means "handy", but am smart enough to read and follow a set of written instructions. Most Amazon reviews of the bike assembling process seem to involve giving the task of actual bike assembly to an unsuspecting husband, boyfriend, or bike shop. I did none of those, and assembled the bike myself.

So I unpacked the huge gigantic shipping box, inside which was the Mongoose bike box. The bike is heavy. Be prepared to haul it about. Also, you will need the following tools: 1) Phillips head screw driver; 2) Allen keys (4mm, 5mm, 6mm, and 8mm); 3) Adjustable wrench OR 9mm, 10mm, 14mm, and 15mm open and box end wrenches; and 4) A pair of pliers with cable cutting ability.

Make sure you have all of these. You will NOT be able to assemble the bike without them (the pliers seem unnecessary except to adjust the braking system, which I did not do).

The instruction manual that came with the bike is a wonderful resource on GENERAL bike maintenance. This manual is in NO WAY specific to THIS actual bike. That makes using the manual a bit of a pain (you need to actually read the whole thing to understand what to do with the bike).

The first thing I did was attach the handlebars (the mongoose design faces outward), the pedals, and the seat. Then you flip the bike over and attach the front wheel to the "fork" (the thing the handlebars attached to which holds the front wheel). Make sure you tighten all the screws in the wheel area (they are all loose and will fall off if you do not do this).

One thing make sure you do not do: walk the bike to a local gas station to fill air in the tires (trust me). I did this and the tube got a hole in it and had to be replaced (cost: $6.97 at City Bikes Adams Morgan).

It would be a good idea to have a bicycle pump to blow the tires up (apparently walking a flat tired bike makes the tube pinch, which is bad for it). The City Bikes guy also said that the part (spindle?) that makes the front wheel spin needed to be loosened. He was nice enough to do it for me.

I got the bike on Tuesday, today is Saturday and it is still not ride-able. I am deeply saddened by this.

So, if you decide to purchase this bike online (and have no one to dump the chore of assembling the bike on) bear in mind that while assembling the bike is not *hard* (hey, the manual really is quite good), it takes significant effort.

Is this effort worth it? I don't know yet, I am still waiting to borrow the tools again from my apartment complex so that I can reattach the front wheel to the bike (I have a mini tool kit with the screwdriver, but it does not have the allen keys or adjustable wrench necessary to put this bike together).

If I had to do all over again, would I purchase from Amazon? Maybe. I learned a whole lot about bike maintenance, and feel more confident in my ability to adjust my bike. However, it is nice to have someone take care of all that for you (for example, if I had purchased the bike from Sports Authority, or Target, or Walmart, or City Bikes, or anywhere else).

Great Bike, Great Price
I love riding around on this bike. I like how the bike rides like a cruiser (sitting upright position), but it's also very durable for light mountain biking. I did have a difficult time putting the bike together, especially getting the gears and brakes adjusted with proper tension. Even now, I'm not sure my gears are adjusted perfectly, as the top gear doesn't seem to engage, but it works out well enough so I am not bothering to readjust it. I also purchased a tire pump that has a pressure gauge on it because you'd be surprised how much air needs to be put in before reaching the correct pressure. After all is said and done, the bike rides really well and it's very comfortable. I even took it out to the woods and it handled the terrain well... The tires are really great for rougher terrain. One thing I was disappointed in is that the bike doesn't have holes to be able to install a water bottle holder. I also have the men's version of this bike, and that one does have holes for this purpose. All in all, a great bike, and Amazon's price is much cheaper than a few of the retail stores I checked out such as Sports Authority.

Buyer beware....
Beware when buying this bicycle. I bought one of these for my daughter and it completely rusted out in less than a year. I would never buy another Mongoose bicycle,

Mongoose Bike


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