KHS Inc. Flite 300

Price Paid:  $0.00

Favorite Ride:
KHS FLITE 300

Bike Setup:
khs flite 300 candy apple red

Summary:
i love the khs 300. it rides smooth gets up an going fast.. but the worst is the gears they are loud and seem to never find the right gear with out it making noise.. i went for a bike ride 4 miles . the chain an gear locked up!!! ya fun.. other then that its fun great bike for the buck and the seat is not that bad as may say it is..

Strengths:
frame is beautiful

Weaknesses:
gears.. rough shifts

Price Paid:  $450.00 at Summit Ski & Cycles

Favorite Ride:
Anywhere North or South from LAX

Bike Setup:
Shimano shifters, unknown cranks set (no markings) Weinamen rims and shimano hubs, low end I'm sure. Carbon fork, Crane Creek head set, San Marco saddle, I added clipless,platform pedals,and wireless speedometer. will probably add a panier set up.

Summary:
I bought this bike for a commuter, weld on attachents for the rear panier, big tires 26c easily roled over and smoothed out the pot holes, dips cracks and broken up asphalt for my commute. I was very pleasantly suprized that this bike was lighter than my steel debarnado, and out climbed and out accelerated it. the ride was smoother, due to big tires carbon fork great frame. I will come back and do a follow up as I had a bad mt. bike injury and will not be able to ride until next season. maybe this fall.

Strengths:
7001 double butted frame. compact design and strength. shimano components and unknown origin crank set shifted well. The bike came stock with a san marco seat. It weighed in at 20 lbs.
The over all ride and performance was better than my Debarnardo Steely w/full campy.

Weaknesses:
Frame welds were cobby looking. wheel sets where heavy. I may change to Newuvation/ceramics for week end rides

Similar Products Used:
Debarnardo Steel frame, full Campy Drive train, Campy Khamsin Wheel sets (gold)
I also tested a similarly equiped Felt road bike. The asking price was around $900. They rode the same and I would have to give a slight advantage to the KHS bike. The workmanship on the Felt frame was better but twice the price of the KHS.

Price Paid:  $325.00 at used from friend

Bike Setup:
Stock, with a few upgrades:
-Mavic Aksium wheels
-Vittoria Diamamte Pro tires (greatly improved ride quality)
-WTB Rocket V (?) saddle
-upgraded brake pads
-Shimano 520 SPD pedals

These changes probably also shaved over a pound off the bike. But at my size, I don't obsess over that.

Summary:
My bike is actually a 2004, like the one shown in the small photo above, except in white/black. I've been riding it for about 2 years now and it has served me well. I do, however feel I've 'outgrown' it slightly, but don't know if I'll bother invest in a newer, better bike since I've got so little invested in this one and it works fine. I'm able to hang with several riding buddies on their $2,000-$3,000 bikes just fine.

I've put about 2,000 miles on it so far and even raced it in a couple of duathlons. Most of my riding/racing is off-road, though.

This bike is a great value, but a more serious cyclist will find it's weaknesses after a while. The good news is that the heavy stock wheels had, for the most part, held up under my Clydesdale weight, and rarely came out of true. I think I've only broken one or two spokes in two years (this is good for me, I'm hard on rear wheels, on road and off). I've since upgraded to some Mavic Askiums.

Strengths:
Cheap. Good entry level bike, especially if found used for cheap. The triple front chainring is good for beginners, but I haven't touched the granny ring in over a year and could easily do without it.

Weaknesses:
Heavy! I think My XL (or maybe XXL?) framed bike was around 26 lbs (!!!) stock. Sora drivetrain, while mine shifts well enough, is a little cumbersome to operate (thumb shifters) while in the drops. An employee at the LBS told me, "if you're spending enough time in the drops for this to be a problem, you're probably outgrown this bike". I agree.

The stock brakes are pretty miserable, especially for slowing down my 6'3", 210-ish lb self. A pad swap helped greatly.

Similar Products Used:
N/A, Mountain biker only before this bike.

Price Paid:  $680.00 at Clarks bikes

Model Year:
2006

Favorite Ride:
North Cascades highway

Summary:
Great bike, the sora parts work fine. The frames is a little on the heavy side but its what you get from the price and the orginal tires are crap and are 700*26 not the standard 700*23 tire size

Strengths:
Price
All around good preformer
Great first bike

Weaknesses:
Tires