A further concrete example of bike shop vs big discount store experience: I bought what looked like a pretty nice bike for my 8yo boy at Costco. The second day he was riding it around the playground ...on the dirt not pavement... the crank broke; crank is the part the pedals are attached to; I examined it and saw that the front sprocket was also already distorted. Two bike shops I took it to, including the sage advice of my expert bike mechanic daughter, said that it isn't even worth fixing. Fortunately, Costco has a liberal return/refund policy and took the junk back.
My lesson: forged parts on better quality bikes are more durable than stamped steel sprockets and cheap cast cranks.
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