Where's the dividing line between a budget "proper" bike and a Junk BSO?

[SkipdiverJohn]

I've noticed in recent times that the term BSO is increasingly bandied about in a derogatory manner to decry budget-priced machinery that isn't built to the standards the commentator thinks adequate. Anything that wasn't purchased from a "real" i.e. non-chain, local bike shop, but came from some other retail source seems to attract particularly negative attention.
Currently, I've got a couple of rescued skip finds awaiting some TLC, and whilst both are undoubtedly "entry level" bikes, I cannot in all honesty dismiss either as just a worthless BSO that should have been left in the skip.
Bike #1 is a Halfords Apollo Avio solid suspension MTB. It's got some surface rust on the frame, rusty cables, horribly maladjusted gears and brakes, but the wheels are still true and round, and the hubs, crankset, and headset are all properly adjusted and operate smoothly.
Bike #2 is a Freespirit Tracker, also a solid suspension MTB. Scruffy & neglected looking, same issues with rusty cables and maladjustment. Hubs, crankset and headset also work fine. Needs pedals replacing. Back wheel slightly buckled and needs trueing up with a spoke key. Worst thing about this bike is the twist grip shifters, especially the one for the front chainrings.
The maladies afflicting both machines are in my book more down to owner neglect and all-weathers London commuting use than any inherent quality issues, grip shifters aside. The Tracker appears to be a particularly sturdy bike with a really substantial, if heavy frame. My original intention was to strip both and build one up out of the nest bits, but having looked closely, both look viable rebuilds that just need all their ball bearings stripping and re-greasing, the rusty cables sorting, and the gears and brakes setting up properly. None of the moving parts are sealed unit plastic throwaways, everything is serviceable given a handful of tools and a pot of car wheel bearing grease.
I'd be interested to know if other Forum users would regard my two skip finds as BSO's or are they referring to an even cheaper, and genuinely nasty, quality of bicycle when they use this phrase?

 

[DCLane]

I'd suggest they're both in the BSO category I'm afraid. The original price would have made them cheap rather than decent - for me a decent MTB/hybrid starts around £200 new and road bike £400 new. That doesn't mean they can't be usable - I'm about to finish refreshing a Dawes Tekarra as a snow/ice MTB with ice spike tyres which cost me £5 and would have been in the BSO category when new.

Others will naturally have widely contrasting different views. One of my club-mates will spend upwards of £5k on a 'basic' bike but was rather red-faced when my 13yo left him for dead up Holme Moss on the home-built for £300 13 year-old road bike he trains on against his £12k ultra-light one.

 

[roadrash]

@SkipdiverJohn The important thing is how YOU feel about them ,if you don't view them as BSO , then there not, if someone else owned them and thought them to be BSO, then they are, ...if you see what I mean

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Interesting. What specifically about a particular bike causes you to either regard it as "proper" or dismiss it as a BSO? Is it the frame material and weight, the price of the gearset components fitted etc?
If I compare one of the cheapest to the most expensive cars I've ever been in, a Skoda Citigo against a Rolls Royce, the Rolls was vastly more relaxed, refined, and comfortable than the Skoda. However the Skoda is still properly engineered within a tight budget, and I would not describe one as a "Car Shaped Object" simply on account of it's relative cheapness. This pigeon-holing of designs into "worthy" quality and "unworthy" BSO categories seems peculiar to cycling.
If we were talking about the worst kind of low-rent, flashy paint job, full-suspension MTB's that crash and bounce along the road like Zebedee then you and I would doubtless both agree that such a thing IS a BSO, because the engineering in them is terrible. However, I don't purely equate price with quality, and I would still regard even a very expensive bike as a BSO if it was a real dog of a design.

 

[MichaelW2]

In my books,BSO has to have a frame much heavier than needed for the price and frame/fork mis-alignment that is visible to the naked eye. If it is a cheap bike, honestly made and fitted with low end but working components, it is a goer. I have rescued Apollo bikes from skips and fitted them out as student/ loaner/station bikes.

 

[Drago]

I would rather get the bus that risk crushing my love of cycling by having to ride a contraption carved from garden gates and boat anchors.

 

[smutchin]

For me, the distinction is whether or not it does the job for which is it sold.

A BSO will have ineffective brakes and unreliable gear shifters, for example. A good example of such a bike would be the monstrosity I got as a £40 "special offer" thrown in with a washing machine purchase some years ago. Absolutely not fit for purpose, impossible to adjust to keep it running smoothly, brakes that very quickly disintegrated in use. Hence it is literally an object that looks like a bike but does not adequately perform the functions of a bike.

 

[roadrash]

Think more lower end car like a trabant..

 

[Yellow Saddle]

For me, the distinction is whether or not it does the job for which is it sold.

A BSO will have ineffective brakes and unreliable gear shifters, for example. A good example of such a bike would be the monstrosity I got as a £40 "special offer" thrown in with a washing machine purchase some years ago. Absolutely not fit for purpose, impossible to adjust to keep it running smoothly, brakes that very quickly disintegrated in use. Hence it is literally an object that looks like a bike but does not adequately perform the functions of a bike.

You are so right. This is not about snobbery but about function. If the term BSO happens to be what is used to describe your washing machine bike, then so be it.
There is no parallel to be drawn with motoring, at least not not in developed countries.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

For me, the distinction is whether or not it does the job for which is it sold..

So it's about functionality?
My first "proper" bike I owned when I was a kid might be regarded by some as s a BSO today. It was a Raleigh Arena, a 5-speed "racer" with drop bars, but cottered cranks and all-steel components. I strongly suspect that it's frame was based on Raleigh's generic sports roadster design. It wasn't light, but it was tough as old boots and in my hands it took a beating without much ill-effect. My mate had a virtually identical bike only with a BSA badge. This was at a time BMX was getting popular and so a lot of other kids had Raleigh Grifters, which I personally thought were junk, so I bought a big-wheel bike for relatively decent road performance. That didn't stop us doing stunt jumps off wooden ramps propped up on stacks of house bricks along with the Grifter owners. My mate was really reckless and managed to trash his BSA so I bought it off him for a fiver, straightened it up, and thereafter used it as my beater/silly stunt bike to save destroying the Raleigh.
Looking back to those days, most mass-market bikes were relatively heavy, but they were solidly engineered and it took a lot of abuse to actually break them.

 

[smutchin]

So it's about functionality?

I'd say that's implicit in the term BSO.

This was at a time BMX was getting popular and so a lot of other kids had Raleigh Grifters, which I personally thought were junk, so I bought a big-wheel bike for relatively decent road performance. That didn't stop us doing stunt jumps off wooden ramps propped up on stacks of house bricks along with the Grifter owners. My mate was really reckless and managed to trash his BSA so I bought it off him for a fiver, straightened it up, and thereafter used it as my beater/silly stunt bike to save destroying the Raleigh.

The Grifter was a real dog of a bike but it wasn't a BSO - it weighed a ton but at least it worked. I had a Raleigh Night Burner which was pretty chunky and clunky compared to a 'proper' BMX (the kid next door had a Mongoose that I always coveted) but it was a featherweight compared to the Grifter. But then the Grifter was always meant to be a 'sensible' bike of the kind your parents wanted you to ride, rather than a fun, cool bike that you wanted your mates to see you riding. To be honest, I would say the original Chopper was more of a BSO than the Grifter - they may have looked cool but they were bloody awful to ride.

My first drop-handlebar 'racing' bike was my dad's old 5-speed BSA which I rescued from languishing in the garage. I did my first 100-mile ride on that bike. I wonder what I would think of it now...

 

[smutchin]

A friend of mine had a Chopper and I remember racing him on my Night Burner. He thought it wasn't a fair fight so we swapped bikes, and I still beat him. Of course. But my god, handling the Chopper was terrifying when you got up to any kind of speed on it...

 

[petek]

What does BSO stand for please?

 

[roadrash]

bicycle shaped object

 

[petek]

bicycle shaped object

Many thanks.
Every day is a school day on here.

Does weight come into it that much I wonder?
For somebody wanting a sturdy bike to just bimble about on then maybe a heavy bike would be no handicap.
Build quality being poor plus unreliable parts though , that'd surely define a BSO.