What have you bought that has been a total waste of money?

[wonderloaf]

I bought these useless things, bundled with other stuff, by Planetx
(probably because they couldn't unload them any other way!)
I tried them out last night for the first, and last time!

View attachment 461290

Warm? Yes.
Reflective? Yes.
Totally useless for changing gears, or braking? Yes.

What size are they? If they're XL's I'll take them off your hands (no pun intended). The PX version of these are the only gloves that keep my hands warm and are probably one of my best purchases!

 

[biggs682]

before I was enlightened I bought one of these, one use and in the bin.. View attachment 461302

i always wondered what they were for

 

[roadrash]

apparently they are for filing up the bin

 

[NorthernDave]

There has been lot of stuff. Off the top of my head and bike related...

Swalbe Marathon Plus tyre - possibly very puncture resistant but it didn't stay on the bike long enough to find out. Hateful thing, managing to be draggy and slow while appearing to provide virtually no feel or grip.

A Bike Hut compact pump when I first returned to cycling. An absolutely useless valve bender that seemed to take a hundred strokes to inflate by 1 psi.

A pair of fingerless cycling gloves from Aldi. A couple of days later I got caught in a light shower and within a mile they'd leached dye all over my pristine white bar tape that simply refused to clean off.

In fact, let's also add white bar tape. My Boardman Road Comp came with white bar tape and when new it looked awesome, but it was impossible to keep clean. I replaced it three times before buying some black bar tape that didn't need a moments attention for the rest of the time I owned that bike.

 

[PeteXXX]

What size are they? If they're XL's I'll take them off your hands (no pun intended). The PX version of these are the only gloves that keep my hands warm and are probably one of my best purchases!

They are L, not XL, and yes, their saving grace is that they're really warm and toasty.

 

[Reynard]

A 2x extender to go on my Canon 75-300 zoom.

The zoom was OK - it's a reasonable lens if you know where its limits are - but the extender was totally s***e. I was still shooting film at the time (2002) so that was a spendy error.

By the next race meeting, both the extender and the 75-300 had been ditched in favour of a 100-400L

 

[gavroche]

A red Hillman Hip in 1969. I kept it for 2 weeks. It burned more oil than petrol.

 

[EltonFrog]

Brand new BMW 325i convertible in 1997. I made the mistake of not test driving one first, I knew as soon as I drove it off the forecourt I hated it. I kept it for two months and sold it, lost a bit of money but hey ho.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Go faster stripes for the bike

 

[craigwend]

They are L, not XL, and yes, their saving grace is that they're really warm and toasty.

I had the Planet-X version, I got used to the lack of finger movement for my STI's eventually...
Waterproof (for one winter), warm & toasty, though anything less than freezing & my hands / wrists sweated like sweaty things ...

 

[Smokin Joe]

A red Hillman Hip in 1969. I kept it for 2 weeks. It burned more oil than petrol.

A fortnight? Pah!

I had a Rover 200 for a week when the head gasket went and I had to scrap it. It had only cost £300 and I hated it anyway, so apart from the inconvenience I was glad to see the back of the heap. I wasn't surprised when Rover went bust a year later, it was a detestable thing to drive.

 

[PeteXXX]

A red Hillman Hip in 1969. I kept it for 2 weeks. It burned more oil than petrol.

If your Hip model was anything like the Imp my dad bought, it had the same problem..

 

[Dave7]

A 2x extender to go on my Canon 75-300 zoom.

The zoom was OK - it's a reasonable lens if you know where its limits are - but the extender was totally s***e. I was still shooting film at the time (2002) so that was a spendy error.

By the next race meeting, both the extender and the 75-300 had been ditched in favour of a 100-400L

Thats the lens I have now.
I had a 500 f4 and a 300 f2.8 but the 100-400 is a great all round lens.

 

[Reynard]

Thats the lens I have now.
I had a 500 f4 and a 300 f2.8 but the 100-400 is a great all round lens.

It's still a great bit of kit, even though there's a newer version of it out.

The 300 2.8 is a cracking bit of glass, as are the canon extenders that go on it. Cos it's a 2.8, you can get away with extenders (and stacking the extenders) - I borrowed one for a race meeting at Silverstone. Loved it, but really couldn't justify the price. And I couldn't hand hold it, which did cause problems. Shortly after, I bought a Sigma 300 2.8 used off a colleague. It's not in the same league as the Canon, but it does the job.

I'll still reach for the 100-400 95% of the time.

 

[craigwend]

A red Hillman Hip in 1969. I kept it for 2 weeks. It burned more oil than petrol.

My parents at one point had 2 , 'his and hers' (the advanced aluminium engine' ) ... The drive still had the oil leak stains many years later after they died when I sold their house ..