I have owned the following bicycles through my life: a Columbia (read ‘Huffy’) BMX, which weighed a ton but never failed. Then I had a Panasonic Road 24” ten speed, because I was short, the bike was red, and it was at a police auction. Then I had a Fuji Mountain Bike, which I bought used at a bike store in Gainesville, one of the few cities in the United States that has more bicycles on the road then cars.

Then I had an el-cheapo $44 K-Mart Special. Don’t know who made it but my friend bought it for $20 when I left college. He stuck on new pedals and a seat after he bought it from me. What a schmuck. Then again, I think he sold it to one of his friends 2 years later for $20. So maybe he’s not a schmuck. Those K-Mart specials last forever. After this I owned a Wal-Mart special, the old Mt. Fury by Roadmaster. That bike is about as solid as they get but you had better get a different seat, that’s all I have to say.

So when gas prices started going up to $2.00 per gallon, and I started needing to improve my leg strength for a little stroll through the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, I wanted something that wasn’t so likely to fail. After all, my commute was 20 miles roundtrip and that is a bloody long ways to walk if your bicycle doesn’t like you.

So I went to the bike store. My bike store (Lake County Cycles) has a preference for Trek. What I mean by this is that they have about 100 bicycles for sale, and each one is a Trek. Maybe the owner likes Greg Lemonde, and maybe Trek buys him a free round of golf every now and then. Either way, while one of my fellow epinionaters recommended Specialized, I went with Trek because that was what was available. I would call this Trek the best of the bikes I have owned yet (although also the most expensive).

Trek has two low-end bicycles. These are the Trek 100 and the Trek 3700. I test rode both of them. I don’t know what you will think when you ride them, but to me it felt like the handlebars were in my lap with the Trek 100.You sit up much straighter and the seat is a little wider. This may make you more comfortable, but I definitely did not like it. I ride down a 4-lane highway with a 55 mph (read "70") mph speed limit, and a 6-foot shoulder. When a truck goes by… Well, it’s a bit like wind surfing and you definitely don’t want a sail. Let’s just say that I need Control. Note the capital C.

The Trek 100 seemed to have low control. This is the type of bike I’d cruise around the West Orange Trail, which for most of you who don’t know is a former train track that has been paved over, where the biggest threat to your bike-riding is kamikaze squirrels and children that aren’t on a leash. On the four lane highway, though, I figure the 50-mph gust that comes off one of those 60-ton dump trucks going a good 80 mph (why are those guys in such a hurry, anyway?) with sand blowing into your eyes – well, the Trek 100 just wasn’t going to cut it.

So I bought the Trek 3700.

This is an excellent bike for what I use it for. It’s got nice, fat 2 ½ inch tires, so that when a car decides it wants my lane I can go in the grass and not worry about it. Then it has these springs on the front which are really nice going over speed bumps, rocks, the stray concrete bumps in the middle left by overloaded concrete trucks, or the random curb that gets in the way of the most useful shortcut over the woods and through the snow.

Apparently the bike has a frame available in differing sizes. I had to wait 2 weeks for this, as they didn’t have one in my “size”. The POS from Wal-Mart comes in a one-size-fits-all. Frankly, I can’t tell the difference. I am sure, however, that some of you die-hards think this an important aspect of a bicycle.

For me I just want to get from one place to the next. Despite the fact that Greg LeMonde won 7 Tour-de-Frances with this brand, you might note that this was not the model he used. First off, there are no fancy pedals. Second, there are no fancy wheels. The wheels are aluminum, however, which should have made it lighter then the Wal-Mart POS. However, my Wal-Mart POS has thinner wheels, and no springs up front. I estimate the Trek to be about 25 pounds, my Wal-Mart POS I estimate at 30 pounds. Not much difference there.

As for performance: I go a little faster on this bike then my Wal-Mart POS - about 1 mph faster. This is probably because the lowest gear is a little lower and the higher gear is a little higher. Now my speedometer says I average14.5-15 mph. Let me be a bit more specific: including a few traffic lights, I go exactly 10 miles, and I can get there in 38 minutes with a tailwind and inflated tires, and 45 minutes with a 15 mph headwind and slightly deflated tires. The Wal-Mart POS adds about 3 minutes. By the way, tires deflated to 30 PSI instead of 55 PSI will cost you about 2 mph. Yes, I do know.

One problem I had with my Wal-Mart POS is that the tires kept on popping. One time I lost a tire after a hurricane, another time about one mile form work, and multiple other times it pains me to think about. On the Trek 3700 I have been over all kinds of… unkind terrain (glass, concrete, pebbles, etc) and I haven’t yet lost a tire. Mind you I have over 300 miles.

One thing I will say is that the Shimano gears are not all they’re talked up to be. This has these “rapid fire” gears. You shift with your thumb on this tab looking thing. The problem is that you can only go down two gears at a time. Not so useful if you are headed downhill in a hurricane and all of a sudden you are headed uphill against that same hurricane. Better move your thumb quickly. My Wal-Mart POS doesn’t have that problem: you just move the stick where you think it ought to be, rotate the chain a bit, and off you go.

The Shimano rapid-fire gears do, however, hold the right gear. I find that this bike has a really, really low gear (you can pedal sitting down up a 15% grade without a problem) and a really high gear that is a bit too high for normal use. So for cruising I stick the chain on the penultimate cog and it doesn’t move until I tell it to. With the Wal-Mart POS, I was usually in the highest or lowest gear, partly because the chain might move without my asking it to.

After 300 miles the gears need a hair of an adjustment. This may be a consistent pain in the ***, although so far I’ve only had to do it once. With the Wal-Mart POS your thumb is the adjustment as you switch gears. With this bike – well, you have to be a bit more precise.

The seat on this bike is decent. It is not great – the first time of riding 20 miles I was a shade sore. I haven’t felt the need to improve the seat, however, because I quickly got used to it. Overall I’d rate the comfort around 3 out of 5 – it’s not a beach cruiser, but it isn’t the Wal-Mart POS, either.

Overall, this is a great commuter bike. With the price of premium approaching $3.00/gallon, most of you can now afford this thing. I read one person who said they had a three mile commute that took 10 minutes? Do yourself a favor – get to a bike store and buy this thing. Then hop on it and take the same 10 minutes without using the gas. When you get to work you will have to go into the bathroom to throw some water on your face to cool off. Still, you are contributing to the overall reduction in oil use by our country, and therefore helping every person on this site. How come you guys aren’t thanking me for doing my for doing my part to keep the price of Sweet Texas Crude under 70$/barrel? We don’t need Prius’s, we need Treks!

This is Trek’s entry-level mountain bike. That means it doesn’t have fancy brakes (it has dual, fork-mounted pads), it doesn’t have a rear spring, it doesn’t have fancy pedals, and it doesn’t have fancy wheels. This is not the type of thing you can run through mud every day, nor is it the type of thing you can bounce around on truly mountainous rocks. And it definitely is not a racing vehicle.

I still say if you have no money, buy the Wal-Mart POS. That bike is a solid bike that will get you where you need to go. If you have a bit more money, this bike is also excellent, and a lot more comfortable. Once you have ridden a bike like this around, you can decide if you want to spend a lot more for a bike that is much more specialized. This bike is great overall for a road/grass/curb commute.


Recommended: Yes