Bargain?

[swee'pea99]

The problem with secondhand is that you if you pay £80, or whatever, you usually need to replace a few bits and pieces, and these can easily cost another £80. Just a cheapo wheel, tyre and tube will be £40, probably more.

At least with a RBSO you know that it's all new, if not necessarily the finest quality!

You might, but you very well might not. All the ones I've bought have been fine 'out of the box'.

The OP doesn't say where he's located, but if he lived in, say, Harlow, he might take a look at, eg:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RALEIGH-PULSA...d=ViewItem&pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item19bbee3503
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Raleigh-Milk-...d=ViewItem&pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item4cef16f2fe
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/raleigh-milk-...d=ViewItem&pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item27b14b8aa2

Personally I wouldn't buy any of these, for various reasons. I found them in 5 mins - finding the real cream takes longer and more effort. But any of them would crap on that Argos, with or without crisps, and I bet you'd get significant change out of £80.

 

[Beardie]

[quote name='swee'pea99'] when you buy 2nd hand you're quite likely to need to do some basic maintenance sooner rather than later, even if it's only fitting a new tyre or some brake blocks - and if you have to get your LBS to do it, it starts eating into your savings.

[/QUOTE]

This is where the LBSs really came into their own. Buying a secondhand bike from one would mean that it would already have had a service and all worn parts replaced. You could then be reasonably sure that it would go for some time before needing serious attention.

When BSOs started flooding in, it was possible for the first time to buy new for less than secondhand. Bike shops no longer found it worth the cost of checking over secondhand bikes for sale (unless it was something special) and so stopped offering trade-ins. Result: a lot of good bikes with miles left in them go to the tip. Really, I believe that the sub-£100 bike is the worst thing to happen to cycling in a long time. This isn't snobbery, but a reaction to customers unknowingly being fed rubbish.

Imagine if a car maker introduced a new car for £1500 or so, but it was made of such poor-quality materials that it would be unlikely to get through its first MoT at the end of three years. I would like to think that it would rightly be seen as a waste of resources by everyone from Greenpeace to Top Gear, yet BSOs are on a par with this.

 

[claud rider]

This bike is about as much use as the rubbish range sold in Halfrauds.
Fine for very light and infrequent use but do any serious riding and its going to fall apart pretty quick.
I'am no expert but these days the starting rate is about 500 pounds for a for a use full bike.
It was lower than this but due to a few economic exchange rate problems it has gone up quite substantially.

 

[arallsopp]

When I was a lad, I used to be into my hi-fi. Loved the stuff. Thought nothing of spending £ks on decent speakers, saved for over a year to buy an amp, that kind of thing...

Of course, I know plenty of bike snobs whose idea of fidelity is an mp3 player with bundled headphones where the whole thing costs less than a decent run of speaker wire.
No way that *I* could enjoy listening to it.

Have they wasted their money?

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

...these days the starting rate is about 500 pounds for a for a use full bike..

Sorry, but that is complete twaddle

 

[Mark_Robson]

This bike is about as much use as the rubbish range sold in Halfrauds.
Fine for very light and infrequent use but do any serious riding and its going to fall apart pretty quick.
I'am no expert but these days the starting rate is about 500 pounds for a for a use full bike.
It was lower than this but due to a few economic exchange rate problems it has gone up quite substantially.

What complete rubbish. Carrera bikes are very good value for money and you can get a good bike for far less than £500

 

[cyberknight]

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/mountain/product/virtuoso-09-34691

Says it all and down to £300

and ...........
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/road/product/subway-1-8831

 

[Cubist]

This bike is about as much use as the rubbish range sold in Halfrauds.
Fine for very light and infrequent use but do any serious riding and its going to fall apart pretty quick.
I'am no expert but these days the starting rate is about 500 pounds for a for a use full bike.
It was lower than this but due to a few economic exchange rate problems it has gone up quite substantially.

My uncle bought a car air freshener from Halfords once and by the end of the week his bungalow had fallen into the sea.

 

[on the road]

He didn't need the air freshener

 

[steve30]

Argos' Challenge Typhoon is currently at £99.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3321542/Trail/searchtext>CHALLENGE+BIKES.htm

Does anyone here have one, or has anyone here used one?

I see lots of negative comments, but I don't see any comments from anyone who has actually used one. I doubt it would be excellent, but you never really know until you have tried it.

 

[GazK]

I can't advise, but I do like the sound of 14 "sunrun gears"...

 

[Alan Whicker]

Argos' Challenge Typhoon is currently at £99.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3321542/Trail/searchtext>CHALLENGE+BIKES.htm

Does anyone here have on, or has anyone here used one?

I see lots of negative comments, but I don't see any comments from anyone who has actually used one. I doubt it would be excellent, but you never really know until you have tried it.

How bad can it be? As long as the brakes stop you moving when you want them to, it'd do very well as a runaround. I see people every day commuting on far 'worse' bikes.

About 12 years ago I had a Probike Black Knight BSO. Weighed about as much as car, had plastic brakes and a crank that warped, but I regularly rode from Bethnal Green to Putney on it. It also cost me £35 more than this Typhoon. I upgraded a year later to a Claude Butler. It was like putting slippers on after wearing clogs.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

I think it is possible that giving heartfelt advice on the forum can, where that advice conflicts with the opinion of some members, be too easily branded "snobbery" by some. Please don't attack me now for saying that, I'm having a go at no-one. However the advice given above by the "don't buy it" respondents is, I am sure, well-meant. I have personally known two people put off cycling because of the bad experience they have had with BSO's (not from Argos). Once put off, they will not risk getting their fingers burnt again and then lost to cycling.

Instead of going to the butchers to buy shoes, visit an LBS to enquire about bikes. Many LBS's have customer's adverts for second-hand bikes and often knows the bike and is in a good position to advise whether or not it is suitable.

 

[swee'pea99]

Did you notice the small print at the bottom?

* Please note item 3321542 has previously been on sale at £79.99.

+ two reviews.

Review #1: "rode it first time and 3 miles into the trip the chain broke and had to walk it home"
Review #2: "The only disappointment was that having built the bike and then pumped the tyres up one of the tyres promptly burst"

 

[CopperBrompton]

A good second hand against a crap new doesn't take too much work out.

Exactly, you can get an old but good-quality secondhand bike for the same money as a rubbish new one. Same thing with cars.