BSO

[Black Sheep]

It's not snobbery. Snobbery would be looking down on someone for riding a steel-framed 80s number while you're riding some super-lightweight carbon job.

My steel '60's road bike is about the same weight or lighter than a friend's carbon build

It isn't the price that defines a BSO ... it is the imitation of a bike ... cheap working maintainable bikes are fine ... ones which are made of extremely poor quality materials or design are BSO's.

cheap bikes with no suspension tend to be fine, some are heavier than others.

its when you start getting bikes with full suspension for £100 when, if you go into an independent bike shop they start at £800+ you have to surely ask yourself where they've cut costs to build a bike with suspension so cheap. the answer is it's built like a victorian station roof and budget components that will wear out quickly, the main ones being the bushings on the back end which will allow the rear bit of frame that moves to slop around all over the place making gear set up near impossible.

also, if you look, the pivot point on most of them is infront of the cranks, meaning there is no rear suspension when you are stood up / have weight on the pedals.

 

[Jezston]

A colleague of mine has just bought a rather suspicious looking bike from Amazon. It's a road bike of unknown brand with unknown brand components, and was apparently £3xx reduced to £120. It has grip shifters for goodness sake. Grip shifters on drop bars I tell you!

However his plan is to ride it into the ground until he knows exactly what he wants out of a bike.

Fair enough. I just hope it doesn't prove to be too disasterous.

 

[benb]

A colleague of mine has just bought a rather suspicious looking bike from Amazon. It's a road bike of unknown brand with unknown brand components, and was apparently £3xx reduced to £120. It has grip shifters for goodness sake. Grip shifters on drop bars I tell you!

However his plan is to ride it into the ground until he knows exactly what he wants out of a bike.

Fair enough. I just hope it doesn't prove to be too disasterous.

I suspect the answer to that question will turn out to be "not that"

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

also, if you look, the pivot point on most of them is infront of the cranks, meaning there is no rear suspension when you are stood up / have weight on the pedals.

Sorry Black Sheep would you say the Santa Cruz Superlight has no rear suspension when you are stood up / have weight on the pedals?

 

[Bicycle]

The more people scream that it isn't snobbery, the more most readers are nodding, smiling and saying to themselves: "Aaah... so it is snobbery then".

As soon as you have a range of products available from various manufacturers across a wide price range, you will have snobbery, almost always dressed up as something else.

In the '80s it was food enthusiasts buying Philippe Starck citrus juicers and Dualit toasters...

This decade it's Campag and friends.

I no longer ride a BSO, but I bought a few from various US PXs several years ago and used them as funbikes, commuters and occasionally as 90-km road-ride vehicles. I was living/working in South East Europe at the time and my bicycles were at home in the UK.

The BSOs in question were called Huffy something-or-others (HT MTB-a-likes) and were US$79.99 each at the PX on the base where I worked.

They were certainly BSOs by the definitions given here, but for what I needed they were fine.

I was no less keen a cyclist then than I am now. My local repair man hated the Huffys, as the wheels were made of cheese and the brakes were made of yogurt, but they did what they did and got me around.

When a BSO (ghastly term) is all you need, then a BSO is fine.

If you are a snob, embrace being one and stop pretending. You fool no-one, not even yourself.

 

[summerdays]

As someone who has owned a BSO and hated it ... (though it did reintroduce me to cycling whilst being awful), and who gets asked by parents at school to try and adjust their kid's BSO ... I don't think it is a snob thing ... it certainly isn't it's monetary value ... I have admired one child's bike that was from a skip when he was getting mocked for that by his classmates.

If I'm a classed as a snob for wanting something that does what it is meant to do (like being able to stop without having to use your feet, or the wheel's ball bearings turning to powder after less than 100 miles) then I don't mind being called a snob.

 

[Jezston]

The more people scream that it isn't snobbery, the more most readers are nodding, smiling and saying to themselves: "Aaah... so it is snobbery then".

Only if you aren't giving people the common decency to actually pay attention to what they are saying.

Repeatedly, people have said no there is nothing inherently wrong with cheap bikes. There are plenty cheap bikes out there that whilst not assembled from the lightest, most efficient and snazziest components, they are generally well designed to fit around the price bracket aimed for, are acceptably put together and should get you from a to b in a reasonably comfortable fashion. And with care, they'll last.

Then there are the BSOs. They are dreadfully constructed compromised designs that non-bike retailers buy for a pittance (typically around £15 per bike. Seriously) that they con customers into thinking are a good deal by coming up with nonsense discounts like "Reduced from "£299 to £99!", are made from shoddy designed parts which the only consideration has been cheap cheap cheap. Components that should be made of metal like derailleurs are made of plastic. They typically fall apart within months, and are often dangerous to ride.

Get it?

 

[Bicycle]

Only if you aren't giving people the common decency to actually pay attention to what they are saying.
...

Then there are the BSOs. They are dreadfully constructed compromised designs that non-bike retailers buy for a pittance (typically around £15 per bike. Seriously) that they con customers into thinking are a good deal by coming up with nonsense discounts like "Reduced from "£299 to £99!", are made from shoddy designed parts which the only consideration has been cheap cheap cheap. Components that should be made of metal like derailleurs are made of plastic. They typically fall apart within months, and are often dangerous to ride.

Get it?

Yes, I think I get the distinction... just about. Thanks for that.

The Huffy I described was 100% 'BSO'... I make no bones about it. I was pretty explicit about how ghastly it was.

I still think that deriding these sweatshop chuckaways is snobbery. So do many, many other people.

I rode those Huffys with pleasure and with gusto during a posting because it was cheap, convenient and hassle-free to do so.

When at home I ride (as do my wife and children) lovely Campag-equipped whizzers dripping with the casual snobbery of the enthusiast.

Many of my acquantances ride around on what some refer to as BSOs. They're not BSOs. They're bicycles.

They're ghastly, but they're bicycles.

It's gratifying to poke fun at far-eastern rubbish - and can fill one with bristling kudos if the "poorly built death trap" angle can be slotted in there too.

But to many, many people it's still snobbery.

 

[Hip Priest]

I ride a £180 Apollo, which some would call a BSO. I've had no problems with it so far, commute daily, and take longer rides on weekends. Therefore, to me, it isn't a BSO, just a cheap bike. Far from putting me off cycling, it's really helped me get into it, and I'm sure I'll upgrade to something a bit better before long.

It has to be said though - people on here aren't snobby. They've been very helpful to me.

 

[Cubist]

No, Apollos aren't BSOs. They are cheap bikes. They work when properly assembled. A BSO is the sort of thing sold by places that aren't bike shops, or don't pretend to be. British Eagle at Asda, Dunlop whatever at Le Cod Sportif, sorry, Sportworld Direct, the indescribably woeful things that the local cash Generator has in at the moment, where the "suspension" units are undamped springs on a heavy steel Y frame, the brakes are soft alloy with plastic levers.... your Apollo will be perfectly serviceable in comparison.

The 1980s steel MTB argument is a red-herring. they were perfectly good serviceable bikes at the time. That they are old or outdated in terms of technology doesn't make tehm bad bikes.

The sort of thing Summerdays is asked to adjust in the school bikesheds (ping Fnaar) will have gearshifters that will cannot be turned by the hand of a year five or six, and brakes that will not stop without assistance from a pair of size four plimsolls.

 

[rowan 46]

My main problem is the term BSO as it is inexact and doesn't state what the problem with them is. Most of us agree that it's not price that is the problem nor where they are made as probably 90% of the worlds bikes are made in the pacific rim or components scourced there. Most of them will get you from a to b. The problem is that mountain bikes are made which are not safe to go down mountains MBSO?, touring bikes not fit for touring TBSO? et al however most of these bikes will get you to the shop or locally to work. you sit on them you pedal they move it's a bike not a bike shaped object and the fact is probably 90% of the cycling population use these things. Most of us probably used these things before we got into serious cycling so it can be argued that these things encourage take up of cycling rather than discourage it. So I would argue they are bikes, not good ones but they get you from a-b. I think we all agree they are not good at their job but they work. I started on a bso most of the people I know ride one. I think we should show them a bit of respect and drop the term because it does smack of elitism it serves no use other than to alienate people and encourage a belief that kit is more important than cycling. The fact is the person who uses a bike on a half hour commute is as much a cyclist as somebody who rides 70 miles and shouldn't be disparaged cos its not the best kit. my daughter uses a cheap mountain style bike to get to school it gets her there and back safely it's a bike not a bike shaped object and because she rides a bike that makes her a cyclist. not as serious as me or certainly you, but it strikes me if eveybody rode their bikes to work or school we wouldn't have a problem with cars. We all have a problem with bikes not fit for purpose but the term BSO isn't the best term to decribe this state of affairs.

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

Whether the user of the term is a snob or not, I think it is hard to deny that it is a mockery.

So the question then, is whether we should mock the object, and therefore potentially the user/owner, who is a fellow cyclist, whose circumstances we might or might not know about.

Even if some bikes deserve to be mocked, the intrinsic problem of the term is it gives no clue why - and how do we answer the question which bike is a BSO and which bike is not? I think someone suggested supermarket bikes are, what about Apollos - are they all BSOs while no Carrera is? What about the numerous unknown brand bikes? Is there a price/weight threshold to qualify? If it is not price/weight what are the parameters/features and how to assess, and by whom? What about really old, beaten up, neglected bikes that are unsafe? Is a BSO that I have spent £30 on replacement parts and time fettling still a BSO and if not how could you tell?

Imho, it is not a useful term.

 

[exbfb]

My main problem is the term BSO as it is inexact and doesn't state what the problem with them is. Most of us agree that it's not price that is the problem nor where they are made as probably 90% of the worlds bikes are made in the pacific rim or components scourced there. Most of them will get you from a to b. The problem is that mountain bikes are made which are not safe to go down mountains MBSO?, touring bikes not fit for touring TBSO? et al however most of these bikes will get you to the shop or locally to work. you sit on them you pedal they move it's a bike not a bike shaped object and the fact is probably 90% of the cycling population use these things. Most of us probably used these things before we got into serious cycling so it can be argued that these things encourage take up of cycling rather than discourage it. So I would argue they are bikes, not good ones but they get you from a-b. I think we all agree they are not good at their job but they work. I started on a bso most of the people I know ride one. I think we should show them a bit of respect and drop the term because it does smack of elitism it serves no use other than to alienate people and encourage a belief that kit is more important than cycling. The fact is the person who uses a bike on a half hour commute is as much a cyclist as somebody who rides 70 miles and shouldn't be disparaged cos its not the best kit. my daughter uses a cheap mountain style bike to get to school it gets her there and back safely it's a bike not a bike shaped object and because she rides a bike that makes her a cyclist. not as serious as me or certainly you, but it strikes me if eveybody rode their bikes to work or school we wouldn't have a problem with cars. We all have a problem with bikes not fit for purpose but the term BSO isn't the best term to decribe this state of affairs.

+1

Any activity you care to mention there are enthusiasts and people to whom it is less important, they just get on with it instead, because it's not really that important to them.
MYySquier Jazz bass is just as precious to me as my Jaydee was or any of my Status basses were. See, I turned all anoraky about something else there, to which at least some of you wouldn't have got.
One boutique, one BSO (Bass shaped object.)

 

[Sonofpear]

To be honest I think your taking it way too seriously.

 

[marshmella]

Found this on Gumtree, description says it all really

This , i believe is sold in Sports Direct...nuff said! But having said that a colleague at work has always bought bikes in the £90-120 bracket, his current ride is a full susser from Tesco (he only ever rides double bouncers).This guy to his credit rides all year all weather then just chucks the bike a year later and gets another Asda/Tesco/Toys R us bike.