Posts Tagged ‘mongoose’
The perfect green stunt bike for 8 yr old.. I got this for my 8 year old for Christmas. He loves Mongoose Strike BMX Bike and can’t wait to go out and ride every day. The bike is sturdy and perfect for his crazy stunts. 
Very shoddy and poorly designed bike. I am scared to even ride this thing. The handlebars cannot be tightened enough so they keep twisting around. The front wheel is too close to the pedals, which makes turns difficult. The wheels were somewhat out of true right out of the box. Perhaps because of this, the brakes dont feel right. I havent ridden this enough to break the pedals yet, but reading the other reviews here, Mongoose Montana Mens Mountain Bike is bound to happen soon.
One more thing is the assembly. There are no instructions on how to assemble from “out of the box”. The ones available are needlessly detailed and often skip basics – useful for a mechanic, not for the typical user. The whole thing seems designed in a very ad-hoc fashion: for example, every allen bolt is a different size.
I’m going to count this as a loss and get my old secondhand bike fixed.
Edit: Thanks to the reviewer who posted that the front wheel could be backwards. This was indeed true. Think me a moron and I wont disagree with you, but the reason I did that was due to the wedge inside the front wheel tube that matches the one on the bottom of the handle being reversed (ie. the factory installed it back-to-front). There’s no way to get at it to turn it around without special tools so I just got a bodybuilder neighbor of mine to jam the handle in as-is. The handle comes a bit loose once in a while so I have to carry an allen key with me while riding, but given the trouble the bike’s been, it’s a small deal.
I still wouldnt recommend the bike or change my rating. Other things wrong with it: gears are not smooth at all. Chain comes apart. Balance is bad (cant ride it hands-free). Seat is uncomfortable. Also, very high friction – it’s like riding an exercise bike sometimes. I did a measurement: freewheeled it down a hill and see when it stopped by itself once it reached flat ground. My old secondhand bike which I’ve rarely oiled (it’s also a mountain bike but manifestly not a Montana) reached twice the distance.