Customer Reviews

Schwinn Rocket Adult Dual-Suspension Mountain Bike

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At last I have come through the gauntlet of mountain bike buying, much scarred, but also much wiser!
I will try to briefly explain why I consider the Schwinn Rocket is a victory for me, and hopefully save other people much grief in choosing a "good" bike.
My experience in mountain bikes goes back to the early days of mountain bikes, but is based more realistically in the biking needs of four growing boys, and their middle aged parents. Like most I have largely purchased off-the-shelf box store bikes. Like most I have had more negative than positive experiences. I attempted over the years to upgrade to better bikes from the box store, but with little real world improvement. I have used bikes on the higher end, but cannot hope to buy such bikes for six people. What I wanted was a bike that would cost no more than twice what the box store offered. For this money I wanted a bike that offered at least twice the quality and reliability as well. What I found was the Schwinn Rocket! Here is a comparison with "better quality" box store bikes and the Schwinn Rocket: WHEELS: Please, go with alloy! Steel wheels are heavy and rust practically over night. Some box store bikes have alloy wheels. Schwinn wins here with double wall rims. This is very important since it is very easy to bend rims on the trail or even on a rough road commute. FRAME: Aluminum is a must! I have box store bikes with aluminum frames, and they are worth it for their lite weight. Schwinn wins again! The quality is immediately apparent coming right out of the box. Paint is very nice for the price category and someone obviously cared to take the time to put the stickers on neatly (not to mention it isn't overloaded with useless gaudy stickers). The Iso Drive frame is definitely superior to other suspensions I have tried. Importantly there is no bobbing over ripple surfaces. Four inches of suspension travel doesn't hurt a bit either! GEARS: Everyone is putting Shimano stickers on their bikes these days. CAUTION! Base grade Shimano derailleurs are better than anything else the box store offers, but they often combine them with lame shifting systems. The Rocket uses better grade Shimano components and their click shifter has put the joy back into riding again. It operates smoothly and is precise, no guessing about what gear you stumbled into, or the subsequent noises that come from gears that have not shifted properly or are in need of constant adjustment. A VERY NICE shift/gear system alone makes this bike a winner for the price. BRAKES: I hadn't given much thought about brakes as they have seldom been a problem for me. When I started using the Shimano breaks on the Rocket that all changed! I had previously considered disc brakes, but now I say, "Who needs them!?" Well, actually they would be an improvement in adverse weather conditions, but for most of us the Shimano self-aligning breaks will more than meet the need. SEAT: While the Rocket's seat still leaves a lot to be desired, it is an obvious improvement over most seats on the box store bikes. I purchased a Lycra Gel Seat by Ergo and couldn't be happier! So, we have: Nice quality, descent engineering, attention to detail. This bike will make a fine recreational, commuter and light/medium trail bike. All in all the Rocket is not for the serious off-road racing aficionado, but for the average person looking for the most bang out of their hard-earned buck the Rocket is the way to go!

Finding a good quality mountain bike that won't cost an arm & a leg is a difficult task. I didn't know a lot about mountain bikes but wanted to replace my boyfriend's bike for Christmas. He'd had a Giant Iguana bike which he'd gotten for only $35 at a garage sale 10 years ago. The only thing he insisted on having was thumbshifter gears, not gripshifters because the bike would switch gears whenever he'd stand up to ride uphill. No doubt, Giant bikes are awesome, but new they were $1000 and up. This Schwinn bike seems to have all the specs he wanted/ needed: sturdy frame, thumbshifter gears, Shimano parts, 20" frame (large), 26" wheels, decent quality tires, a "guy friendly" seat, and easy assembly. Since Schwinn has been bought by Pacific Cycle, it's hard to say if this is a true Schwinn bike or one made by PC with the Schwinn label slapped on. It was difficult to find reliable sources of info on mountain bikes. Many mountain bike sites are geared for hardcore cyclists who snub parts that can't withstand BMX-style jumps and off-roading. [...] was somewhat helpful in that it listed blogs of people evaluating individual parts of bikes, but sometimes the blogs were too skewed by personal opinion to be helpful for people like me who wanted to know they were buying a decent quality mountain bike for under $500 that would handle mostly street commutes. My boyfriend was really pleased when he opened his present and assembled it right away. Amazon delivered the bike within a few days even though Christmas was a week away. I don't advise talking to Schwinn about this bike, since they don't seem to keep record of it once it's sent to a 3rd party for sale. In contrast, Amazon's customer service was very helpful. As far as I can tell, this bike is much better quality than any you'd buy from a big-box retailer which many blogs tend to snub. I'd recommend having a pro bike shop assemble/adjust it to make sure everything is running smoothly (several novices blogged about problems with brakes on their bikes, for example, and more experienced bikers advised that the brakes were fine, they just needed to be professionally adjusted). This bike looks and feels even better in person than in the pictures shown.

The good:
* This bike arrived undamaged, without missing parts, and with all sub-assemblies assembled properly. Final assembly was easy, and the gold swing-arm looked much better than the gray swing-arm in the photo. The suspension feels very nice, and the soft-tail makes a huge smoothness difference when riding. The shifters work well. I bought the "Large" size". I am 6' 6", and I needed a longer seat post, and a Delta Stem Rise to raise the handlebars (up three inches).

* A neighbor of mine who is more into bikes than I took this bike for a spin last night, and really liked it. He thought the handling was very good.

* I think this bike is reasonable value, and functions very well.

The bad:
* The right pivot bushing has excessive play. For those of you who may not know, these bushings act as hinges between moving frame sections near the rear axle. The back wheel wobbles slightly under side-load as a result. Upon removing the bushing assembly, I have learned that the outer contact surfaces of the bushing are two pieces, which are stamped, not machined, and are VERY cheesy. The pivot bushings are one place a quality corner was cut on this bike. The manufacturer, Pacific Cycles, could not provide me with a replacement part. That is terrible form on their part. I have checked two local bike shops, neither of which could help me. I would give this bike four stars, but I consider both this defect significant and Pacific Cycles' lack of product support to be significant.

Conclusion:
My two-star rating is grounds for you to consider an alternative to this bike. The awful product support is grounds to consider a alternative to Schwinn.

Bought this bike for my son-in-law for Christmas. Also bought four other bikes for Christmas and put them all together myself so I got to compare this Schwinn to a Cadillac bike, and two other Schwinn bikes and a returned Columbia bike that I sent back to Amazon because of different color fenders and fork to the color of the main frame of the bike. This Schwinn is very well made, easy to put together, and boxed well so I received it with no damage. It shifted easy with no adjustment needed. I was pleased with the quality. The Cadillac bike was boxed poorly, the cardboard the box was made of was more flimsy than that of the Schwinn. The Cadillac was scratch in a couple of places which was not bad enough to send back but did not please me for the price the bike cost me. The seat emblem was a little off center. A front brake wire was missing and had to call to have them send me one. They did with no problem. The seat on this Cadillac seat was probably the most comfortable seat I have set on before. This is the bike that has the additional back rest you can put on if you wish. The gear knobs were hard to shift with your hands. All of the Schwinn bikes I purchased were easy to move the shifter knobs. I was more impressed with the Schwinn Rocket than the Cadillac comfort bike.

This bike is a great bike to practice your mtb skills. It's low price so it won't matter if you bite the big one. Get this bike before you get that very expensive dream bike!!

I Wanted a mountain bike for around $300.00, looked at a lot of them, compared them and decided on the Schwinn. Got Free shipping and it was delivered on time. My 17 year old son put it together for me, I was at work, all I had to do was put air in the tires. My daughter and I went for a hour ride, it was fun, the gears skipped 1 or 2 times, put I bet I could adjust it and make it stop. The seat was a little hard, so I ordered another one today. The gears were easy to shift, and the seat had a lot of adjustment, which is nice since I'm almost 6' tall. I think it will be a good bike for me to ride to work, once my new seat comes.

Within weeks the pedals stripped and fell out. Yes, they were installed on the correct sides and correct torque. The gears cogs are held together with rivets not bolts and soon loosen. The handlebar stem is welded not cast, ugly, clunky and overweight. The bike frame is also made with poor quality welds and overweight. The spokes are weak, easily broken and not standard sizes. The rubber seals on the front fork shock tubes soon fell apart. Beyond tires and tubes there is no way to buy parts on-line. You must go to a Schwinn dealer who is either incompetent and/or dishonest. I was told I had to purchase service in order to buy parts. The Shimano Deore derailleurs are excellent, however they appear to be made for another model or make of bike. They have openings for cables and controls that are absent. If your intent is to ride pavement to the grocery store once a week then this is a bike you might consider. If you want a quality trail bike then look elsewhere.

I only give this 4 stars because there is no kickstand for this bike and one part was missing. I called customer service and this bike doens't come with a kickstand? (supposedly this is to be a high end bike and it is to be customized at a dealer? Umm I search the net and the price for this is in the $300 range even though the lady made it sound like it was a VERY expensive bike?) Anyway the one part that was missing they are sending out (it should have been put on at the factory, it was the cap that covers the opening in the frame where the pedal bar come out) This bike is made in china! most bikes are these days which is a shame that we can ship the work half way around the world instead of paying our own people.
Other than those problems the bike seems sturdy enough and is mostly put together, we had to attach the one brake, handle bars and front wheel. This is for a birthday present so we weren't able to try it out for long. The seat bar is much too long so we will have to cut a portion of it off to make it fit properly. It seems worth the $300 plus price tag.