What was your worst cycle and why?

[Enid Agnus Dei]

Mine was a Shockwaves XT 900 mountain bike from the dreaded Halfords, was crap from day one but I was on a very tight budget, after getting hit from behind by a car, a new rear wheel was going to cost the same as the cycle, even on Ebay a wheel was £80-00!

Was happy to get shot of it and never again will buy ANYTHING from Halfords, glad I saw the light and now ride retro racers!

 

[Boondoggle]

Shockwave 850 ? Something like that. Yes it was from Halfords. The wheels were made out of marmalade and buckled everytime you looked at it, the bottom bracket lasted 6 months and basically ate itself, bits fell off etc etc. I bought so many parts for that bike it's unreal. I used to do pretty long country rides on it somehow. It was a bike where everything needed adjusting before every ride. The last straw was a rear wheel that you just could not tighten. As soon as you pushed down hard on a pedal the rear wheel would pull right out of the frame. It was like an unintentional anti theft mechanism. In order to get one last bit of enjoyment out of the bike I left it outside a local branch of Morrisons, knowing it would be "lifted" in less than 30 minutes by some local scum. I laughed as I walked away, imagining the feeling of jubilation the thief must have felt on finding an almost new looking bike left unlocked. Ahhh it's the small things.

My current bike is possibly worse. Super tight budget at the moment, but I more than doubled my budget to try and avoid the headaches. I got a Veho. So far the new bike has been even worse in every way and has cost me a lot of money to try and make it fit for purpose. I never owned a bike you couldn't inflate the tyres on before. Did I mention it was also from Halfords ?

 

[gaz]

A diamondback that I had back in 2001. Took it off a sweet jump and cracked the frame.

 

[AnythingButVanilla]

A £50 BSO from an online ex-catalogue shop about six or seven years ago. I bought it because I was working shifts that finished after midnight and I couldn't always get a lift home and the bus service in Clydebank at that time of night is rubbish. I was more than willing to spend a bit more cash but my ex-husband convinced me that the bike was fine for my needs so I went ahead, ordered it and it was a bloody disaster from day one. I have very short legs and the frame was about two inches too big for me so I could barely reach the pedals nevermind the ground, he never put the bike together properly so the handlebars moved independantly from the front forks, the brakes were dodgy and the whole thing weighed a ton. I literally couldn't give it away on Freecycle so left it outside my flat here in Clapham where it took two days to be stolen. I half expect to open the door one morning and find it sitting there with a note attached to it begging me to take it back

 

[TonyEnjoyD]

My Raleigh Chopper, one ball breaking, wheel-wobbling seriously unstable steed which I thought was brilliant when I got it aged 14.

 

[Enid Agnus Dei]

I know the Shockwaves brand is Halford's own brand, built to a cost and boy does it show!

Not heard of the Veho Boondoggle, but sound a right bag o' crap sadly

Ouch Gaz....

 

[Boris Bajic]

Among all sorts, from rod-brake BSA kid's bike, through 5-speed Raleigh 'racer' and onto 80s Peugeot Premier... thence to Brick Lane specials, friends' discarded crap and anything I had lying around.... to today's unnecessarily complicated bicycles and a superbly simple fixie... I can categorically say that...

I have never had a bad bicycle.

 

[Enid Agnus Dei]

Am I the only one here thinking unless you pay good money these days the cheaper bikes are just badly made? We need a good cheap range of cycles to encourage more to ride esp in these times where money is tight don't you think AnythingButVanilla?

God the Chopper odd things to ride at the best of times esp if the gears slipped and you landed on the gear lever, have you seen the prices they go for now TonyEnjoyD?

 

[Enid Agnus Dei]

Wow Boris you are lucky indeed mate!

 

[AnythingButVanilla]

Yup, definitely. When I say that I was willing to pay more than £50, I was thinking more around the £150-200 mark which is what my current Halfords hybrid cost. At the time I was 16k in debt and barely able to keep my head above water and whilst I'm no longer in that position now, I'm not the type of person to spend upwards of £500 on a first bike that I don't know if I'll ride or enjoy and I imagine that many people aren't either. Does any of that make sense?

I've gone from a £50 BSO in 2004 to a £200 hybrid in 2010 to a £650 road bike in 2012. There's definitely a need for a keenly priced bike that doesn't fall apart as soon as it rolls out of the shop.

 

[Enid Agnus Dei]

I'm Yorkshire so I don't like spending too much on a cycle to be honest, and like to keep things simple too, means I can fix it then.

And yes makes perfect sense!

Imagine if the UK could build a cheap cycle that was built to last more than 5 minutes......

 

[Boondoggle]

You would think that £150-200 would get you a usable bike, nothing special, but certainly you should expect a basic reliability. That's what I thought when I got my newest bike, but it seems I'm wrong there. I can't throw £500 down on a bike.


Thinking back to the old shockwave thing I had, how does one even make a bike that heavy ? I mean....I've never felt anything like the effort of trying to get one uphill

 

[Enid Agnus Dei]

Agree fully Boondoggle, wonder what profit is made per cycle built? Yes a company needs to make profit but some cycles given the cost can they be worth their price tag? my mate has a £650-00 mountain bike and I'm sick of fixing the damn thing for him, he only rides on the road but every time it goes out it returns with a new fault!

 

[Chris S]

A Havoc Sabre - it had an MTB frame and six gears that were so close together that most of them were redundant. A good thing too, they had a mind of their own and would change themselves every time I hit the slightest bump. It also had a prop-stand that was too short to reach the ground!

It was almost new when I bought it of ebay for £11.50. I swapped the tyres for some old ones and manged to sell it to somebody else for £10. He was going to a car-boot sale that weekend so I don't think he'd have kept it long either.

 

[Sale Madrid]

Yup, definitely. When I say that I was willing to pay more than £50, I was thinking more around the £150-200 mark which is what my current Halfords hybrid cost. At the time I was 16k in debt and barely able to keep my head above water and whilst I'm no longer in that position now, I'm not the type of person to spend upwards of £500 on a first bike that I don't know if I'll ride or enjoy and I imagine that many people aren't either. Does any of that make sense?

I've gone from a £50 BSO in 2004 to a £200 hybrid in 2010 to a £650 road bike in 2012. There's definitely a need for a keenly priced bike that doesn't fall apart as soon as it rolls out of the shop.

I stupidly bought a Planet X for my first bike - it cost me an arm and a leg. I've had problems with the frame and no matter how many times I e-mail Planet X for help, they completely ignore me. I definitely would give Planet X a wide birth in future, both their own brand products and the company as a whole. Their customer service is pants or non-existent to be precise.