The worst bike ever made or that you have owned

[johnnyb47]

Hi to all.
Hope you've all had a good day today.
This question may of been asked numerous times before so please accept my apologies if it has.
My dad had a cheap and nasty road bike from Woolworths I cant remember for the life of me what it was called. Probably some brand that was exclusive to Woolies. This bike was horrendous in every way. The components where made from chocolate and the frame literally turned to rust after six months. After a year it was only fit for the scrap heap. The wheels were now reduced to rust , the crank was shot and the components where worn.
The bike was from the early 80s and cost around £65 in memory serves me correct.
On another note, two school friends back in the early 80s both had the same make and model bikes for Christmas. The bikes were Sun Solo road bikes and were most probably a catalogue purchase from Empire stores or Janet Frazer. ( ha remember them lol ). Every day , through rain sun or snow there would be a large group of us who would bike and race each other to school covering around 12 miles a day. I always remember after around six months of ownership of these two Sun Solo bikes , the.paint work started to discolour on the crossbar near the head set. The discolouration was only about the size of a thumb but the blue paint work slowly got lighter in colour until one day whilst biking home from school the lads frame made a loud crack noise and sure enough the frame had cracked across the discoloured paint. Three weeks later the others lads bike succumbed to the same fate. They did manage to get replacement bikes though from the company.
So do you have any horror stories of a cheap and nasty bike that may of owned.
I would love to hear about them.
Many thanks
Johnny

 

[MontyVeda]

I think it was a Black Eagle (possibly Hawk). A big black chuck of metal, also bought from Woolworths around 1978. It replaced my beloved tomahawk. It looked better in the shop when I chose it, looked like big shitty chunk of iron every day after that (it rode like one too).

The bike that replaced this (early 80s) was a Sun Solo (of all things!). Took me a while to get used to it's numerous gears (10) but it was still going in the late nineties. (I think half of Lancaster has owned it at some point, passed around for no more than a tenner)

 

[Dogtrousers]

Never had a bad one.

 

[MichaelW2]

I've one Apollo steel ladies bike made out of 2 skip finds. It is actually not too bad as a pub/station/loaner bike.

 

[midlife]

The original Grifter and the early Bickerton.........

Shaun

 

[cisamcgu]

I had a RJ Quinn hand built frame, with shimano 600, etc..circa 1980. I loved it, it was my pride and joy. Sometime in about 1991 I was thrown into a skip by an over-enthusiastic landlord . I know this is not what the thread is about, but it has become my most hated bike memory, if not in fact, my most hated bike

 

[Cuchilo]

I swapped my new chopper for an old grifter . My mum went mental . Looking back i was proper tucked up but i didnt care as i had a big boys bike .

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Strida

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I had an Asda MTB for a brief time

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Oh yeah, and the secondhand Viscount Aerospace that the late aged P worked overtime to buy for me in the late seventies; tried to kill me during a TT on the A264.

 

[fossyant]

Never had a bad one.

Same here.

Started with a Raleigh Budgie and that did me well till I had a Chopper. Did some miles on it, and eventually got a 'racer' - Coventry Eagle Stratos. That did me until I was 16 when I bought a Raleigh Road Ace (531 - Shimano 600). The old Coventry Eagle served as a heavy winter bike for a year or two.

 

[User6179]

Grifter closely followed by Iron Horse , best bike was a Super Tuff Burner which was indestructible .

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Grifters weighed a ton and weren't too nimble, but I loved my two, I imagined that they felt something like an off road motorbike would feel. And I pretended that's exactly what it was. With its big tractor tyres it was a forerunner of the MTB, and despite the weight I could get it airborne off home made ramps. Joy.

My worst bike was a cheap (about 80 pounds equivalent) MTB bought in Germany in 1991, the wheels went out of true quickly and it started to rust within weeks. I abandoned it in a bike shed after a year and left it to rot.

I've enjoyed all my other bikes, I've had Raleigh Grifters and Burners (BMX), a tiny no name road bike, a Peugeot racer (all in my youth) then Claud Butler town bikes, a mid 90s Giant Peloton road bike, a reconditioned 1950s skip find, all sorts. All great fun.

 

[NorthernDave]

I had an original Chopper, which rose tinted glasses and sentiment say was a great bike.
But it wasn't. It was crap and got replaced by a 10-speed racer as soon as I could persuade my dad that my younger brother was big enough to ride it.
It's sole virtue was that it was the first (and almost certainly last) bike MPV, in that you could get 3 people on one, just.
Although I wish I still had it now so I could flog it to some retro-hipster on Gumtree.

Which leads me to the worst bike ever (although I haven't owned one), which must be the "new" Chopper - an unashamed attempt to cash in on the misplaced popularity of the original one, yet missing the important stuff that actually made it "cool" - the proper laid back seat and the top bar gear change lever. Shockingly poor.

 

[Roxy641]

Never had a bad one.

Can't remember having any bad bikes. But enjoying reading all the comments.