Is there such a thing as a bad bike or a useless component these days??

Is there anything that just isn’t fit for purpose or are there things we just use in the wrong situation?

I ask because I had a set of Conti Mountain King 2.2 on my HT and they were without question the worst tyres I have ever used. Punctured just by looking at them wrong. I ended up having to pump them up so hard to stop the pinch flats they felt utterly horrid.

So back to the question.. are these bad tyres, or am I just using them in the wrong place? I’m in the peaks, which as we all know is rocky. Are the contis the best thing since sliced bread on smooth flowing singletrack?

just wondering like…..!

This thread will never get going, its far to sensible and not of a trollish nature 😆

btw, not tried them myself so have no opinion, sos.

but have you ever used ANY bike kit that just didn’t do its job?

My theory is that there isn’t any utter rubbish, just some stuff we use incorrectly or in the wrong situation,
I’d love to know if there is utter rubbish out there..

this thread needs help

now we’re talking, start your engines

Conti race king. Stupidly thin tyre that gets ripped if you sneeze. I’m only 11 stone and i pinch flat below 45psi 👿 It was you i saw yesterday wasn’t it? Sorry i started riding off, i assumed you were going the same way as me but didn’t want to stop as i would have split off from the rest of the group.

FSA
(all made from cheese)

FSA Smack Daddy cranks were solid for 3+ years of bmx!

Aye that was me!!

Don’t worry about it, I was on the homeward bound leg going the other way!!

See this is what I mean.. I had FSA rings and they were really good, miles better that XT As I said I’m in the peak which is hard on components but the FSA lasted me well.

Conti Mountain King 2.2

+1.

Hope Tech M4’s that offered no more stopping power than a £50 set of s/h Juicy’s. Duly sold on. And quickly.

We had a headwind all the way back to glossop 🙁 Had to pedal down chunal hill….

continental tyres will kill you

I had conti vert pros briefly, hated them as well.. for me just didn’t feel right. They were the tyre of choice on here for a while I swapped mine for Panaracers!

Another good point about the brakes up there.. I have Juciy 7s on my 5spot. Never had an issue with them, great stopping power and reliable, yet there are many on here who wouldn’t weigh down paper with them. So for me they are not bad brakes, yet there are many on here who would say otherwise.

So back to the question, is there such thing as a bad bit of kit??

CODA disc brakes from around 10 years ago were far and away the worst bike component I have ever come across. absolutely shocking!!

Orange 5s… usless!!

Hope tech 4 ‘s crap????

Great …. just bought a set. Well they look nice anyways …

back to topic though …

Bad bikes …. Orange p7 … Right stinker.
Bad components … Any conti mtb tyres … The only tyre i happilly bin.

my maintenance skills can make anything crap, and by maintenance i mean maintaining a place in the back of the shed.

most normal style metal water bottle holders don’t take too much to unravel, plastic is fantastic! i don’t get on with conti tyres, too round (crossways duh!) pretty much anything will do on the back when its dry and not too rocky though.

I’ll take the M4’s off your hands if you don’t want them, I weigh 15st and happily stop quickly with mono mini pro’s (that the carbon/titanium xc weight weenie version for anoexic race wippets). And thats despite ‘upgrading’ to 140/160mm rotors!

Superstar bottom brackets, they really are shit.

” I ended up having to pump them up so hard to stop the pinch flats they felt utterly horrid”
I believe the minium pressure on at least the older and not quite brand new (speed king/mountain king/etc) is 50psi. Not sure about rubber queens and newer, or anything black chilli

Continental tyre tread ‘caving in’ from underneath, tread then folds over each time it hits the floor. Seen in on speed kings, mountain kings, verticals, gravity. All non black chilli?

Continental tubes claiming to be suited upto 2.5″ tyres. Way Smaller, thinner (and pinchflat prone) than Specialized upto 2.2″, Raleigh upto 2.1″
Horrendous with any tyre anywhere near a small 2.5″

’04-’07 XT and ’05-’08 LX aluminium chainrings. Completely dead rings/chain/casette inside of 7 months through summer, inside of 5 through winter

Magnesium rocker links maybe. I’ve read in relation to bikes (so not sure on how different/all magnesium alloys actually behave in reality) magnsium has a very low fatigue resistance. Rockers pinged off inside of 3 years. Split showed the crack had been propagating for some time with loads of tiny cracks up until the final break

‘Professional’ tools, appear blackened/hardened, T-25 head trying to round on first use

Non-servicable freehubs? Lock up mid-ride or snap (loud crack) and go free without warning

Bontrager ACX TLR 55/62a, tread starting to cave in from underneath after about the 3rd ride
Oddly my Bontrager MudX TLR 55/62a (visually very similar tread) haven’t done this whatsoever. Still going strong for the 3rd winter, admitedly not quite as tall tread as when new, so on 2nd bike that doesn’t see the deepest of winter

Any bike with Maxxis 2.25″ supplied on Mavic XM317 rims, presumably with ‘standard’ XC tubes?
[cough]orange[/cough]
They’re pushing it on XM719s IMO/IME. On XC717s 2.25″ maxxis is very squeezed at the rim. Sub 50psi was pinchflat central for me with standard tubes (which don’t seem to have met the tyre until you’ve inflated to about 20psi)

Older crank brothers multitools. Rounded about half the tools on mine far too easily without really trying
A friend had a set of Crank Brothers candies undo/empty the ball beatings out on the first ride

Can’t think of anything else off the top of head right now

Agreed on the Mountain Kings, mine were rubbish and soon replaced.

I’m sure there are still bad bikes out there, luckily I’ve not yet had one.

Anyone else unlucky enough to experience setting up the latest Promax cable discs(as on Cannondale SL5)?The pads never seem to sit in the same place twice, and usually at about 10 degrees from parallel. If you set them to clear the rotor(which also requires much straightening as is usually warped to hell and back)the lever virtually hits the bars, if you set them so the lever works at a sensible point then the pads drag. Suggestions(other than shoving them up the CSG rep’s a**e) gratefully received.

james – bad workman/rider

Agree with the Mountain Kings, I’ll give you USE suspension seatposts, Pace stuff, DT rims, bejesus

they’re hard to get tyres on, sold mine with the Mountain Kings fitted! 😀

Seems to me that there’s a Conti’ theme running here & I’d have to agree that Race King is no king at all. I had huge problems with their fragility.

@ Takisawa – Your Hope M4 cannot be set up right, they’re more than fit for purpose.

I would add that my Rockshox Quadra r21 back in the day were no use nor ornament. May be that’s just early technology but then again, should they have been released at all as they never worked as suspension, they just kept a wheel at the front.

Any fork by suntour.

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/tools/cycling-tools/mini-pump/product/review-innovations-road-air-2-pump-33713/

For me this pump didn’t work, from new, in a dry heated garage. Wouldn’t seal properly. When the head was lifted off the valve the O ring came off. Utter rubbish. I would have returned it but I used the included bottle cage mount to mount my Topeak Road Morph instead.

I should have known there was a reason Wiggle had discounted it by 75% to £4. I suspect they were getting a huge amount of returns.

Anything made by SRAM/Avid/Rockshox…

I used a set of conti diesels, they were utter tosh.

them little bolts on odi lock ons…….cheese bolts

Green Slime – utter cr**… I’ll stick to carrying a spare inner tube.

Wave rotor on BB7 Avid was warped on arrival too.

I like Verts, but High Rollers are utter crap. Nearly new set in the shed with all the worn out Verts.
Ditto never had a problem with Juicy 7s.

The greater problem is: the number of people with no clue of how to ride a bike; no clue how to differentiate between suitable applications of a component; no clue how to work on their bike; and no inclination to think that issues they encounter might be their fault rather than the bike/component.

I like Conti tyres.

I also like Hope brakes. But then I know how to look after them 🙂

Not much is truly crap or it wouldn’t get made. It’s just the wrong application or the wrong usage. Tyre companies can’t say ‘oh well this tyre is great in one certain application’, the hyperbole arms race demands that they claim it’s the best thing ever.

Not much is truly crap or it wouldn’t get made. It’s just the wrong application or the wrong usage. Tyre companies can’t say ‘oh well this tyre is great in one certain application’, the hyperbole arms race demands that they claim it’s the best thing ever.

I think thats what I’m getting at..
however there seems to be a universal dislike for conti tyres. Are they just bad tyres, or just not suitable for our type of riding.

I had some speedking 2.3s that I at first thought were awful. Then I pumped them up much harder than I would’ve, and they were much better. thin sidewalls run tubeless didn’t help at all at 30psi. I’ve still got them on the bike and enjoy them now.

I think some people are too quick to bin something when it they don’t immediately like it.

I’ve used Mountain Kings and Verticals for years without any problems. Conti would by my tyre of choice.

Apart from frames, the worst component for me was a PACE RC 41 Fighter. There was a lockout lever which doubled as an adjustment knob. It was impossible to keep the fork set up as you wanted it particularly when trying to adjust it wearing thick winter gloves!

PACE RC 41 Fighter

I had that on my RC41s, didn’t bother me too much tho as it was easy to flip it back into position. And it wasn’t lockout it was lock down, which was a great feature and I miss it on my revs.

One man’s bread etc.