failing like never before

Several years ago, when I was much smaller, my parents bought me a mountain bike. If I recall correctly, it was a Pacific (kind of a generic brand), purchased for about $80 from Walmart. It wasn't exactly a great bike, but at the time I thought it was awesome. I spent a lot of time working on it, fixing flat tires (I managed to get way too many of them), and adjusting my brakes. A few days after I replaced the tubes and put a new seat on it, my Pacific bike was stolen. And then for several years, I didn't have a bike.

About six months ago, my dad bought me a cheap Huffy (another generic brand) at a garage sale. I fixed it and rode it around quite a bit. It was quite frankly, a piece of shit, and it broke quite often. After one of the bearing-cages in the crank assembly was crushed, my dad and I decided that it was time to try for another bike, and we eventually found a Trek 820 for sale on Craigslist for $20. At the time, my Dad and I had no idea what bike companies were good, and we didn't realize (nor did the seller) that the 820 was worth a whole lot more then $20.