Whats the worst bike you've brought

[DCLane]

Probably one of three:

A free Corona beer MTB. Terrible, terrible BSO. Sold it for £20 to someone for a beer weekend party.

A Wilier Izoard XP carbon road bike. It just rode like a dull thing and only had Sora componentry. Bought on the cycle-to-work scheme for £900 and I sold it for £500 after it was all paid off.

Also on cycle-to-work a Whyte 605 650B MTB. Looked lovely but it just felt too unwieldy for me even though it was supposed to be the right size and spent most of the time stored unused. Sold at the end for about £450.

 

[froze]

52 x 42 and a six speed 13-21. No 39 until a couple of years ago.... and still use a 21....

And it was a Raleigh dealer that sold it too big...

I bought a 84 Fuji Club at a garage sale for $40 that only had 5 miles on it, the guy never rode after the first day he bought it, why? the bike shop sold him the last of a floor clearance model, told him it was a great bike and it fit him fine, except it pained him too much so he threw it in the attic till a garage sale about 26 years later, I saw the bike I bought it, but I noticed the bike was about an inch too big for his stand over height, that's why he hated it, but I loved it and it fits me perfectly.

 

[DCBassman]

A 2011 Norco alu hybrid from the dump, for a tenner. Looked to be a good fixer-upper, but eventually just stripped it. It had been left outside for many years and was not worth the effort.

 

[dan_bo]

Bloke down the road here is selling a Raleigh Activator for 65 quid if anyone's looking to update this thread.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've never bought a bad one. I think I've bought four in total over the years. All good.

No plans to buy another unless one gets nicked.

 

[GuyBoden]

I bought a bike with flat handlebars, but the flat handlebars made my hands ache after 4-6 hours cycling, but it's just my physiology.

There was nothing wrong with the flat handlebar bike, so I sold it, it was my hands/wrists.

Edit: But it was, the worse bike I've bought.

 

[rogerzilla]

A modern (2013) Kona Cinder Cone MTB. Hated the ride, the position, the suspension fork and the disc brakes. Sold it and built a 1994 Kona Kilauea. The early 90s XC MTBs were the peak. Then all MTBs started aping DH bikes and became unrideable for long distances.

 

[froze]

I just remember the best bike I 've had which my parents bought for me when I was 7 years old. It is red and easy to ride. But it was stolen someday and I was crying for several hours.

You reminded me of something! I had a Mattel V-rroom bike when I was 6, rode it for about a year when my friend wanted to ride it, so we exchanged bikes for the day, he and I was coming down this road down a hill, we were riding on the dirt off to the side of the road, he hit a hole which blew the bike into several pieces sprawling him out over the dirt and gravel. He had a bunch of abrasions, nothing serious thankfully, but we were 7 at that time and he was screaming, this gas station owner came running over and took him, me and the bike back to his shop where he cleaned up his wounds put some Band-Aids on the worst ones, and tried to put my bike back together but it was bent up to badly. It wasn't my worse bike, but by the time I got to older side of age 7 I was getting embarrassed to be riding it, all the other kids had "grown-up" bike, so I wasn't too upset it got destroyed. Even when I hit 7 I "accidently" broke the motor so my dad could take off to eliminate some of the embarrassment! But the stupid thing about removing that motor was that it was more cool to put several clothespins with a playing cards to make noise instead?! WEIRD!

 

[cougie uk]

One back in the early 80s. From a catalogue. A silver 10 speed Rudi Altig.
Heavy as anything but it got me hooked so it can't have been that bad. Many a club ride it did - happy days.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Apollo CX10

I've had two of these for use as parts donors, one I paid a whole quid for off eBay, and the other one I found dumped in the street 50 yards from my front door. Worst thing about them is the frame, very heavy and built like a cheap MTB. The salvaged mechanicals have proved to be pretty durable even though they are low end.
Absolute worst was probably a Dunlop full-sus disc braked BSO, but technically I didn't buy that as I found it abandoned. They are really crap bikes, but I still salvaged a few spares off it all the same.

 

[Thorn Sherpa]

A single speed dmr aluminium framed bike, forget the model but bought it for a barely 3 mile commute to work when I bought my 1st house. The single (no pun intended) worst bike I'd ever bought, everything but the frame and fork failed on me within a year. Lesson learnt

 

[All uphill]

My worst was a Jumpertrek bought in 1996. Hugely heavy frame and fork with heavy wheels and heavy tyres. The canti brakes were ineffective. There was something wrong with the geometry which made it want to do anything other than go in a straight line.

I rode it all over the Quantocks and must have developed some fitness carting all that weight around.

I didn't know any better and it didn't let me down, so it wasn't all bad.

 

[freiston]

I'll have to link to a post of mine in another thread. I've had another bad bike, bought for me back in the 70s - a single speed Halfords Wanderer (iirc) - pretty much their competition for the Raleigh Wayfarer. Cheap shoddy components made from cheap shoddy metal, gas pipe frame. It had quite a bit of chrome plating but that peeled and flaked off, as did the paint. I know that my mum and dad struggled to raise the cash for it and so I still feel guilty slagging it off. Otherwise (apart from that and the one in the link below), I have been happy with all the bikes I've had - and quite a few of them have been cheap old 2nd hand bikes that would have been cheap when new.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/w...d-object-youve-ever-bought.36980/post-6707579

EDIT: I've just done a quick search and can see that Halfords did a 20" folding shopper bike called the Wanderer - this is definitely not the bike that I had but I am still confident that mine was also called a Wanderer.

 

[kingrollo]

Kuota Khydra.

£3.5k - nothing but trouble from day 1. Expensive mistake.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I'll have to link to a post of mine in another thread. I've had another bad bike, bought for me back in the 70s - a single speed Halfords Wanderer (iirc) - pretty much their competition for the Raleigh Wayfarer. Cheap shoddy components made from cheap shoddy metal, gas pipe frame. It had quite a bit of chrome plating but that peeled and flaked off, as did the paint.

I once picked up a cheapo 3-speed roadster as a donor bike that was Halfords branded rather than Apollo. Low quality chrome, pitted and flaking everywhere. The frame, although clearly gas pipe and pretty heavy, was surprisingly well made with neat brazing and half decent dropouts. Better quality than an equivalent Puch frame, which used swaged tube ends and electro-welded dropouts.