3 month old supermarket bike. Here's a list of faults.

[Gravity Aided]

Nothing makes one not want to ride like a bad or faulty bicycle.There is no greater incentive to ride than a good well maintained bicycle.At least in my experience. I think new bicycles are quite expensive but used ones can be really nice. It just takes a little expertise to tease the attributes out of them.

 

[MontyVeda]

...

I can see the shops point of view. How likely are they to get paid if they do £100 worth of rectification work on a £50 bike?

What? People with inexpensive bikes are likely to shirk on their repair bill??

Some folk really do have a very low opinion of the average BSO rider.

 

[User10119]

I had a cheap-n-cheerful halfrauds mtbso, which was a gift from my dad when he bought himself one and they had (literally) a BOGOF deal. I rode it round Cambridge, St Albans and York for 13 years and, in its last few years, did an average of 30 miles a week commuting plus other utility riding and a handful of 35-40 miles weekend rides. It always lived indoors or under cover and was actually in pretty decent cosmetic (although not mechanical!) order when I got rid in late 2009. My corner shop (York Cycleworks) kept it going in the face of my utter ineptitude at fixing so much as a puncture until the point where they said that so much of the drive train needed replacing that it wasn't cost effective as it would cost more than buying an equivalent quality bso, at which point I ran it into the ground prior to donating to the bike rescue (I'm pretty sure I saw it with a replacement crankset locked up outside a shop a few weeks later!) and got myself the Very Lovely Valencia on the bike-to-work scheme. So sometimes low end bikes can fulfil the purpose... however I suspect that what you could buy as an entry level bike 20 years ago was rather less made of cheese than a current supermarket special. The grip shifters, for example, never packed up and with decent brake cables/blocks the braking was absolutely fine. It weighed an absolute ton despite no suspension nonsense and wasn't stylish, but it was fit for purpose. I'm not convinced the £79.99 options are...

 

[Gixxerman]

Same here, I was in an LBS recently when a supermarket bike was wheeled in. The LBS owner did not even allow the potential customer to speak - just said he would not even look at it and it was broken - throw it away.

I know that it is the persons choice how / what they spend their money on. However, this sort of thing really winds me up. These bikes are landfill in another form, and just use up the planets resources for little or no useful purpose. One of my relations bought a catalogue special BSO and asked me if I would come and put it together for her. I was going to refuse as I knew how it would pan out. But I had to help as she would have done it herself badly and then be riding round on something that wasn't safe. I took it out the box and within 5 minutes discovered that the wheels were so out of true that the brakes were going to catch unless I had them so far off the rims they bearly worked. I very briefly entertained the notion of truing the wheels. But decided not to bother and told her to return it and give me the money and I would get het a decent 2nd hand bike. She returned the bike and got a replacement. When aksed why, she replied that why would she get a 2nd hand bike for the same price as a new one. I tried to explain that the 2nd bike would far better than her new BSO, but she would not have it. So I assembled the BSO (which this time had slightly truer wheels). A few weeks after she told me about numerous faults that had developed (gears skipping / slipping, brakes catching). I refused to get involed with it anymore as it is simply a waste of my time.
Unfortunately, it is not just bikes that this buy cheap / throw away culture has hit. The whole manuafcturing industry is going the same way. Compare a washing machine today with one ten years ago. You can see where the cost cutting has had an impact. Who is to blame? Well the consumer is. We keep asking / telling the manufacturers to reduce the price of the goods and the quality suffers and in a very short period of time, it ends up as landfill. How many appliances today are worth trying to repair?

 

[Gravity Aided]

Much the same with television sets. Used to have parts you could repair and replace. Now it just goes curbside.

 

[Profpointy]

...


What? People with inexpensive bikes are likely to shirk on their repair bill??

Some folk really do have a very low opinion of the average BSO rider.

Not trying to speak for Drogo but surely the point is not that "poorer" customers are dishonest, but the customer thinks they're being ripped off as "how can it possibly cost 150% of a bike's cost to repair it" - hence at best there's a dispute, or the customer just walks away, not thinking he's done anything wrong. We sophisticates here know well enough the economics of it, but we're not likely to buy an £80 BSO from a toy shop in the first place

 

[MontyVeda]

Not trying to speak for Drogo but surely the point is not that "poorer" customers are dishonest, but the customer thinks they're being ripped off as "how can it possibly cost 150% of a bike's cost to repair it" - hence at best there's a dispute, or the customer just walks away, not thinking he's done anything wrong. We sophisticates here know well enough the economics of it, but we're not likely to buy an £80 BSO from a toy shop in the first place

Yet another low opinion of the average BSO rider... now it seems that even basic economics is beyond their tiny cheap bike buying minds.

You 'sophisticates' would benefit with a headectomy from your arrisses

 

[Profpointy]

Yet another low opinion of the average BSO rider... now it seems that even basic economics is beyond their tiny cheap bike buying minds.

You 'sophisticates' would benefit with a headectomy from your arrisses

Perhaps you should read wot I rote, rather than replying based on - well I don't know

 

[summerdays]

Yet another low opinion of the average BSO rider... now it seems that even basic economics is beyond their tiny cheap bike buying minds.

You 'sophisticates' would benefit with a headectomy from your arrisses

I disagree I've had friends tell me that it was cheaper to buy a new bike than get their current one fixed. And I remember the first time I got mine serviced being surprised just how much it was as a percentage of the bike cost. Your average non cyclist sees cycling as free once you have bought the bike and are surprised at the costs of maintaining a bike whether it is a BSO or otherwise.

 

[MontyVeda]

Perhaps you should read wot I rote, rather than replying based on - well I don't know

i did...

Not trying to speak for Drogo but surely the point is not that "poorer" customers are dishonest, but the customer thinks they're being ripped off as "how can it possibly cost 150% of a bike's cost to repair it" - hence at best there's a dispute, or the customer just walks away, not thinking he's done anything wrong. We sophisticates here know well enough the economics of it, but we're not likely to buy an £80 BSO from a toy shop in the first place

 

[Profpointy]

i did...

Oh well, never mind then

 

[Cyclopathic]

I disagree I've had friends tell me that it was cheaper to buy a new bike than get their current one fixed. And I remember the first time I got mine serviced being surprised just how much it was as a percentage of the bike cost. Your average non cyclist sees cycling as free once you have bought the bike and are surprised at the costs of maintaining a bike whether it is a BSO or otherwise.

Education and information are the key things, I think. People need to know that any bike will need some money spending on it from time to time to keep it in working order. They need to know that cheaper bikes can still be maintained and work well, although not for absolutely free.
When people baulk at the cost of a repair I try to equate it to a few days bus fair or a taxi fair and they usually get what I'm saying.

 

[upandover]

I came within a hairsbreatdh of stopping, a few weeks into starting cycle communting when a bike shop told me.my bike was a 'piece of shoot' and that 'with your size on top of that thing' it won't last the year. That was after telling me they couldn't fix the slipping gears. It was a 17mi round trip with 220m climbing, from zero, and I was running low in energy and patience with my aching legs.

Instead, I learned (successfully) how to do it myself, and bought a new bike somewhere else. I've had six different bikes since then, spent a fortune on gear, but not a penny of it there!

Oh, it was a £550 electric assist. Not a great bike, but it was still going fine several years later with the person I sold it too a few months when I bought a hibrid. S