Sadly the saga of the Aldi Bike has been ended by the warranty company IGC Dorel, who upon inspecting the photos instructed me to take the Aldi Bike back to the Aldi store and get a full refund. As my goal was to test the bike itself and not a suped up version of same I have not spent a cent on upgrades but have spent some money on consumables like oil, grease and patching inner tubes, some money on accessories like a luggage rack and lights I also invested in the toolkit sold by torpedo7 when it was on special.
However - I can not let you go without filling you in on what happened with the rear axle and making a few observations.
The rear axle Saga
I discovered that my rear axle was slightly bent so I thought I might be able to improve the touchyness of the gear changing at by fixing that so I contacted the warranty people and expected a replacement rear axle assembly. What they sent me was a whole rear wheel including, rim, liner, inner tube and tyre (but not the freewheel). Unfortunately the axle on this new wheel was bent worse than the axle on my bike so I contacted them and politely told them about it. For some reason this prompted them to send me two replacement wheels, of which, one was acceptable, for which I thanked them.
Observations.
I now have a full wallet but cannot shake my heavy heart. I liked that bike and I miss it already.
Lots of people buy bicycles from the likes of toysisus Wmart, and Big K. If these bikes are not good they will not ride them long But they are not returning them and getting their money back or the stores could not afford to sell them. I think one of the reasons why more people are not riding bikes is that they are keeping poorly made bicycle shaped metal sculptures in their garages with flat tyres and badly adjusted brakes.
I will try and take all of the information I have gleaned from the fun I have had and write it up as a review in the reviews section - (too many professional bike reviews are written on the basis of an afternoon's ride and a pint of lager shared with the sales rep)
I will soon be tearfully bidding my bicycle Aldifan alter ego farewell but reserve the right to maintain my aldifanness for their blue vein cheese, chocolate and coffee.
P.S. My wife is not likely to let me get away with doing this myself - but I am sure there must be at least one Repcofan or Huffyfan out there.