Has anyone else seen the recent advert from Halfrauds for a cheap nasty £70 shitter?
Can't help but think this would be like riding a radiator and feel sorry for anyone who buys one.
To compare I recently bought some new pedals, I had been putting this off for ages as money is a bit tight. Decent flats were anywhere up to £120 for hope's pedals and £100 for DMR vaults. In the end I went for a sensible £60 option with Shimano Saint.
I just can't get my head round the fact a decent pair of pedals costs the same as a bike from Halfrauds. Makes you wonder how they do it? Surely it must be a death trap.
That's not the cheapest ever. My mother bought two from Tesco. £60 each. Full suss as well...
That was a couple of years ago mind.
I worked in Glasgow for a couple of years and bought one for my rain or shine short commute along the banks of the Clyde. Technically i went into the shop and asked for the cheapest bike they sold. It weighed a ton, had aluminium proportioned tubes made of steel and I reckon weighed almost as much as my full suss.
Still, after nipping up the bolts it ran ok, sold it 2 years later for £40 and spent nothing on it during the time I owned it.
I admit it was poor compared with my "proper" MTB and road bikes but it served its purpose so I wouldn't go so far as death trap.
I bet the kid who gets one for Xmas will be made up and will be able to wheelie better than you...
Butcher, I imagine you can get cheaper I was refering to Halfrauds claim of their cheapest ever.
Mintman, very good point you make there. Costing so little you can always sell it for a similar price you paid for it I suppose.
Was it horrible to ride?
[i]Butcher, I imagine you can get cheaper I was refering to Halfrauds claim of their cheapest ever.
Mintman, very good point you make there. Costing so little you can always sell it for a similar price you paid for it I suppose.
Was it horrible to ride?[/i]
Iv'e got an Orange 5 that cost over 3K & It's horrible to ride!
Just kidding. 😈
It wasn't at all comfortable, but certainly sluggish and heavy so I can't say I enjoyed it much! It really felt like it had nothing in common with my Pace 405 but it made that feel like a joy to ride when I did go biking!
"Decent flats were anywhere up to £120 for hope's pedals and £100 for DMR vaults. In the end I went for a sensible £60 option with Shimano Saint."
Pipe down - what you mean there is - the pedals i want are xyz...
I had a 90 euro folding bike for a 12 mile round trip in den helder for 6 months .....one of the better folding bikes ive ridden tbh ( and i have ridden alot of them)
I just can't get my head round the fact a decent pair of pedals costs the same as a bike from Halfrauds.
I'm sure the people who buy a bike from Halfords would think the same thing if you told them how much you spent on pedals.
FWIW I use Nukeproof Electron pedals which are rather cheaper than even BSOs sold by Halfords. Then again I suspect most people would think I spent a ridiculous amount on the unicycle they're attached to.
Iv'e got an Orange 5 that cost over 3K & It's horrible to ride!Just kidding
I know you could never get one that cheap 😛
I had a succession of cheep BSO's while at university, TBH they went up and down hills and round corners as well as anything costing £1k+.
Probably wouldn't have wanted to take it down too many black runs but for commuting and riding to the pub there's nothing between them and something costing 100x more.
Just bought the missus' mum a rockrider 5.0 from decathlon for £99, if it doesn't outlast all my bikes (except probably my £100 commuter) I'd be very surprised.
A student i know had a trax fs from halfords to do the trails at Afan, i tried to tell him not to bother but his mum bought it as a present so when he turned up with it i said nice bike, did W2 twice so's about 100k + and kild it, had his money back too.
My most ridden bike is a £200 Decathlon special, it's absolutely fine.
That Halfords £70 jobbie will put a smile on many a face this Christmas and will get people out on bikes, what's not to like?
Can't help but think this would be like riding a radiator and feel sorry for anyone who buys one.
I bet the poor sods that get one have to put up with instant coffee too, I weep for these people, I really do.
Might want to think about the fact not everyone can afford £1000+ bikes, and for many folk a £100 bike will do just as good a job for them.
No doubt the kids who get them for Christmas will live them and might just get turned on to cycling.
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My first xc bike - surprisingly robust ... Youd never know i was a dh rider in a past live with that seat angle.....this was in about 2001.....bike was 25 pounds second hand .
One things for sure the 70 quid halfords bike is at least fully rigid and not quite in the same league as supermarker full sus specials .
I was given a BSO once which I kept at work. I would ride my nice bike to work, lock it away, then ride the BSO to the gym and lock it outside.
I think it cost me about £20 to replace all the cables, brake blocks and chain, probably about 40% of the bike's new price.
It wasn't a death trap and it wasn't particularly nice to ride, but it was quicker than walking.
Might want to think about the fact not everyone can afford £1000+ bikes
Which reminds me...
Mrs MTG and myself called in at the [url= http://www.spokes-uk.org/ ]local bike recycling charity shop[/url] yesterday.
We were riding about £6000 worth of bikes between us and got talking to a woman who was buying a bike for her 14 year old daughter. She mentioned that she had wanted to get a bike for a while, but had only just been able to afford it. This from a shop that sells bikes mostly in the £25 - £60 range.
I see guys riding along on supermarket and halfords cheapies all the time, about town...it does the job they want it for, and thb to them a mountain bike is a mountain bike and would probably never dream of spending over a 100 quid on a bike.My brother could never dream of even spending 2 or 3 hundred quid on a bike and was commuting to work on a very old cheap Diamond Back I gave him years ago up until a fortnight ago he phones me and says 'Ive got a new bike,a Claude Butler for £40'he was just over the moon he had a 'new bike',the DB was still going strong,the only thing I ever did to that bike was change a tube for him...again does the job they want it for A2b.
I alway point people who come to me for cheap normal bikes towards Common Wheel, the local bike charity - for that money you get something much, much better second-hand.
Fair point that this £70 fully rigid halfords beast is probably a lot better than super market full sussers.
I still can't imagine it would last 5 minutes off road.
I see far too many people riding those super market ful sussers as commuter bikes simply because they haven't got a clue. I always think to myself they must not realise how hard they are making it for themselves.
For example I see a guy everyday riding to work. He is on the nastiest full susser you can imagine, rear wheel so flat it's almost on the rim and not doing any more than 7mph on the flat. It must weigh in excess of 50lb.
I don't unseat as why he doesn't buy a cheap fully rigid and put skinny tyres on it. He would half his travel time and make the ride so much easier.
It's very easy to look down on cheap bikes when you know about and ride better quality bikes. But for the majority of people its all they can afford and does for what they need. For some its a starting point that gets them involved in the sport and that can never be a bad thing.
Jez www.followingthechainline.blogspot.com
Having seen the heaps of crap that a lot of folk in Amsterdam or Copenhagen happily ride around on as their main mode of transport absolutely fine I don't see the problem. The big difference though is that in the UK we still have a fixation with calling and vaguely shaping the bikes intended to ride around towns like these "mountain bikes". Cheap road/city specific bikes should be where it's at.
Fair point that this £70 fully rigid halfords beast is probably a lot better than super market full sussers.
I still can't imagine it would last 5 minutes off road.
A while ago one of the mags (don't remember which) didactic test on some cheapie bikes by taking them out for a proper ride. if I recall correctly they had a few problems here and there but all the bikes survived intact and undamaged. All bikes sold in the UK must pass the same testing and conform to the same British Standards. There's no reason a properly PDId bike would fall apart
As everyone has said, cheap bikes have a place. Pooling into town, to work, leaving outside etc. if it gets people out of a car, saves them some money and gets their heart rate up a bit, then that's gotta be a good thing right?
Who knows, maybe their next bike is a £300 Trek town bike.... And so on. 🙂
I spotted the ad and thought at least it's fully rigid, and actually thought hats of to them for not pushing looky likey full sussers.
Bet it rides as well as a Pashley about town or down the canal tow path.
Did anybody else who saw the advert think to themselves, despite the £xxxx of bikes on the current fleet; "I quite fancy that" ?
Think about it, it's another niche to fill- its a new bike, but for the cost of a tank of fuel. You could ride it down the pub, not lock it up, not do any maintenance and yet it's still a new bike!
I just can't get my head round the fact a decent pair of pedals costs the same as a bike from Halfrauds. Makes you wonder how they do it? Surely [s]it must be a death trap[/s] the pedal manufacturer must have seen me coming.
the mrs turned up in late august with a brand new in box alloy framed adult sized full susser from tesco ..26 quid... alloy rims.. 21 spd.. v brakes.. pink and white
more than appropriate for the canal side sunday runs and mid week reservoir ride she does..
has she been ripped off or is it us paying 2 grand for a 'basic spec' that are 'ripped' off..
A friend spent around £400 on a HT from Halfords.
Took it over Norland Moor once which, DBW or Ton will tell you, aint that gnar. He weighs about 8 stone. By the time we'd reached the bottom he'd snapped something in the forks and the front brake stopped working.
2 trips to Gisburn later, cracked frame.
I don't know what the manufacturers intended that bike to be used for, bumpy roads maybe.
A £400 bike shouldn't just do that, I blame the rider.
In contrast to that, my dad has had the same £200 Scott mountain bike for the last 18 years. When I've mentioned that I'm riding a remote pass that doesn't have a path on it, he'll invariably say he's done it before on that bike.
I have a cheap (not as cheap as that Halfords bike) no brand bike for the winter commute. Mix of trails and roads. Does me fine.
It's probably no 'worse' than the bike I started off-roading on at 11 years old. I remember it being a lot of fun, it got loads of off-road use at a level that I'd still call 'proper MTB'. In hindsight I know it wasn't a great bike, but it was a good price and it got me hooked. So, one of the best £100-odd ever spent.
It doesn't look that bad for £70. It'd probably be fine as a commuter/hack bike thing.
I recently had a shot on the bike that I had when I was 14, an old raleigh, and couldn't imagine considering taking it anywhere near some of the runs I'd take my current bikes on. It felt bloody awful.
But then again, I loved that bike when I was younger, it was perfect for what I needed it for at the time, a bit of light off road, mucking around with mates etc and without having ever been on 3 k full susser to compare it to, I absolutely loved it.
I imagine/hope the kid who gets his first 100 quid MTB this christmas will think the same 🙂
The only thing i notice is people on cheap bikes around town never seem to change gear! Not sure if that is because they haven't worked out what the gears (usually at least 21 of them) are for, or just because they don't work / aren't adjusted right (more likely). So i regularly pass people going up a slight grade, but they are in top gear, doing about 4mph, and straining like mad just to move.......
Decent flats were anywhere up to £120 for hope's pedals and £100 for DMR vaults. In the end I went for a sensible £60 option with Shimano Saint.
You spent how much on some pedals? I think my last pair were £12.
As loads of people have already said, for most people a bike is a bike is a bike, if it gets them from place A to place B without exploding into a pile of nuts and bolts they are happy.
If they are the kind of person who then thinks, hey this is fun! and starts riding more then maybe they will think about getting a better bike later, maybe not, but we all started on cheap bikes didn't we?
I remember when I got my first 'proper' mountain bike and my parents spent £150 on it, it was the best bike in the world ever and I couldn't ever imagine having to upgrade it, same again 2 years later when I was scrimping and saving for my £300 Trek... unless you're one of those 'new' 😉 riders who has been duped into thinking you can't possibly tackle anything trickier than a towpath unless you have spent close to a grand or more on a tricked up super bike, we all started off with cheap bikes, and I think it's amazing how much bike you can get for under £100 when they are built sensibly, ie: rigid and functional.
They serve a purpose, cheap transport and 'gateway' bikes for want of a better phrase.
It's a shame that really sensible, cheap bikes aren't easily available over here. Something with mudguards, a basket, dynamo lights and a sensible upright position.
Not sure if that is because they haven't worked out what the gears (usually at least 21 of them) are for, or just because they don't work / aren't adjusted right (more likely)
I'd say you have that the wrong way round, the amount of times I've had to explain to people how their gears work, and when to use them, I reckon it's because most people either just don't know or don't care, their gears may not shift as slickly as the latest XTR, but even a 10 year old, kinky cabled, thumby and SIS derailleur will move the chain to a different* cog.
*maybe not the correct one but at least in the right direction!
It's a shame that really sensible, cheap bikes aren't easily available over here. Something with mudguards, a basket, dynamo lights and a sensible upright position.
+1 but then a decent set of mudguards, and lights fitted correctly can cost almost half the purchase price of a 'cool' looking MTB style bike...
Until they start coming as standard, and there is a shift from MTB style fashion bikes to actual functional city and town bikes people will keep commuting on heavy, knobbly tyred tanks.
I think it's an image thing, bikes are still not seen as a cheap transport tool, even by the people who buy them as cheap transport tools! they still want it to look like a mountain bike.
This thread reminded me of this blog post about converting a BSO left in the back alley for the Scrap Metal Fairies to take away into a ridiculously practical winter bike: http://karlmccracken.sweat365.com/2012/12/15/my-winter-fugly-bike/
I just can't get my head round the fact a decent pair of pedals costs the same as a bike from Halfrauds. Makes you wonder how they do it? Surely it must be a death trap [s]the pedal manufacturer must have seen me coming.[/s]
Not really. I have had my DMR V12 pedals for approximately 13 years now. Think I paid less than £50 for them.
They are still going strong but I have a few bikes so needed some more decent pedals.
Instead of going crazy on DMR vaults at £100 I went for shimano saints and got good discount from my local bike shop.
Paid £50 in the end which I am very happy with.
They are fully rebuildable and will no double last me 20 years plus so very good value.
On the other hand I could have spent £12 on some pedals or £70 on the halfords bike and it would simply not last.
The rule is buy quality buy once.
Riding a shitter makes you appreciate quality bike goods.
My dads mate owns a bike shop (which has been handy on occassion). While he was on holiday in china, he managed to get a tour of one of the enormous factories manufacturing BSO's. this was about 7-8 years ago.
He was asking about prices and was told that for the likes of Tesco, Halfords etc, who would be ordering by the multiple container load, the unit price was $20. And, yes, that's dollars, not pounds, and included shipping to the UK! 😯
The rule is buy quality buy once.
One word: Wellgo 🙂
billysugger - MemberA friend spent around £400 on a HT from Halfords.
Took it over Norland Moor once which, DBW or Ton will tell you, aint that gnar. He weighs about 8 stone. By the time we'd reached the bottom he'd snapped something in the forks and the front brake stopped working.
2 trips to Gisburn later, cracked frame.
I don't know what the manufacturers intended that bike to be used for, bumpy roads maybe.
I've got 2 £350 Carreras. One is now 21 years old, still in constant use, after the apocalypse it'll be all cockroaches, and Keef Richards riding around on my Krakatoa. The other is 4 years old, it got used all over up here, then retired when I got my Soul, then turned into a rigid mtb and hammered about for a year or so, did some racing and some silly riding (memorably chasing downhill bikes at an innerleithen uplift...)... Some of the parts were rubbish, but they're the same rubbish parts on competitors' £750 bikes so.
'1.95" MTB Tyres give grip in all conditions' Haha...
Bargain. 😆
Now that is a truly nasty bike. I just had a quick read of the reviews and there are quite a few bad ones.
Someone complaining about the build quality of the bike and said it just didn't feel right lol.
Also quite a few suspect good reviews. Looks like halfords staff have been busy in their lunch times.
The rule when spending that sort of money on a bike is always buy fully rigid.
Anything with suspension is going to be shockingly bad and heavy.
Halfoeds sell a 21sp cheap road bike called the TDF for about a ton. The only problem with it was poor brakes. It's still going fine. And half the weight of the tank bsos. I'm not looking down on cheapness just crapness. Those cheapy tank bikes a poor value for money.
Having a teenage son who for some reason is popular with other teenagers(Mmmm) , the garage always seems full of these bikes.
I think the point is they are better than walking, its just a shame the MTB fashion had to turn them all into tanks or they may see the proper value cos non of them go off road.
most of them used to have a sticker on with 'not suitable for off-road use' surely..?
These bikes from the likes of Halfords and the supermarkets can be a bit of a double edged sword.Some people who have one of these pieces of crud-iron as a first bike use them as a stepping stone to better bikes and cycling becomes a part of the rest of their lives.Other people have one as a first bike and it puts them off cycling for life !!
I was told when i was younger that these bikes (and the cheap chisels you can get in poundland) were made from old chinese railway lines....
...HOW MANY BLUMMIN' RAILWAY LINES DID THESE PEOPLE HAVE ?? 🙄
most of them used to have a sticker on with 'not suitable for off-road use' surely..?
This exactly. As I young teenager I was lucky enough to have a decent mountain bike. It was 2nd hand but I loved it. It was a 97 kona Kilauea (spelling?). My parents couldn't afford to buy me a bike so I had saved up for this from a weekend job. A few of my mates had decent bikes as well but there was one kid who had what I call a cheap nasty bike.
The parents of this kid were really up them selves as thought they were better than everyone else. Kids were spoilt etc.
However instead of buying a decent bike they bought a cheap nasty suspension bike from toys r us.
The kid thought he was the bollox on it but it ended horribly.
He tried doing tricks on it, bouncing on the front wheel with front brake locked on. As he slammed the brakes on, put his weight forward the rear wheel came up. The next part though is nasty. The forks sheered clean off where the steerer tube is bonded in to the crown, ended up in the boy face planting and losing most of his teeth.
So unfortunately now has false teeth.
Personally I don't think the parents should have bought a cheap bike and dressed it up to their kid as something it wasn't. I dont think a decent bike would have failed in this way. (well it never did for Hans no way Ray when he used to hop around on the front wheel) and remember this was just a kid doing an endo/stoppee.
The parents were livid that the bike had failed and I believe sued Tous R Us for quite a lot of money although I don't think they were honest with how the bike failed, so i guess it was a bit of a fraudulent claim.
I love the fact halfords charge an extra £20 to assemble that Trax in the link above. I also don't like the way they've described it, good on hills and fast to accelerate, compared to what? Bikes at this price are a pig to setup properly, couple that with people paying this sort of money probably not knowing their way around a bike is going end up with forks on backwards and gears that won't change. Fully rigids at this price have a role, describing that lump of garbage and not assembling it properly is pretty sharp practice.
Funny you should mention bikes being sent out of Halfords with the forks on back to front cos i've seen several bikes that have been sent out of our local Halfords with cheapo suspension forks raked backwards.
Worked with a guy who used to have a part time job in Halfords and he told me they were instructed to spend no more than 8 minutes safety checking the bikes before they left the store.
If you are going to buy a bike go to a bike shop not a car parts shop with a side line in bikes.
Worked with a guy who used to have a part time job in Halfords and he told me they were instructed to spend no more than 8 minutes safety checking the bikes before they left the store.
That is awful and playing with people safety even lives.
Never bought anything bike related from halfords and never will.
Infact the only money I have ever given them was for an MOT, bargain at £27.50 which I'm sure they are not even making a profit on. Must be a loss leader and only make it pay by failing lots of cars.
surely a heavy bike gets you fitter, so the heavier the better is the best bet for winter fitness? Sure, if you're heading off over mountains on an all-day epic, take your 4-figure dream machine, but for a pootle to the pub or shops on a grotty winter's day, the heavy bike will keep you in shape better....
Yeah you would think so. I've been trying this theory out recently but it doesn't appear to be working.
I've been going out on my DH bike for XC rides mainly because I love riding the bike and assumed I'd get fitter in the process but everyone it felt massively hard and once back on te hardtail I'm no faster than before.
It just needs more watts to move it but this does not mean you will do more. You may just go slower and less distance for the same effort.
I bought the Singletrack '£100.00 Weekender' bike from them after they'd used it in a feature a while back.
Steel Frame, decent V's, gears all worked, bearings fine, decent tyres.
Bought it for a mate who was just getting back into bikes and it was fine. Took it for a lap of Lee Quarry, stuck huge tyres on and it was good fun.
Very dead feeling and pretty heavy, but it all worked, apart from the cheap seatclamp.
It actually handled pretty well and nothing broke.
Sadly got knicked shortly after, but for £100 new it was a damn impressive bike.
Halfords I think.
Worked with a guy who used to have a part time job in Halfords and he told me they were instructed to spend no more than 8 minutes safety checking the bikes before they left the store.
I could do it in 2 minutes to be honest. It's not hard. There's very little to check that could make a bike unsafe, just a few bolts, 2 brakes and the wheel axles. Job done. Where does the other 6 minutes go?
If he means a PDI, then that's an entirely different thing and, for the average bike, simply won't happen in less than 1/2hr. I recently PDId a bike for an interview. Took me about 35 minutes. Thats from a sealed up box to a bike fully ready to roll out of the door.
It's not the checking that takes time it's the rectifying of the faults you find. eg brakes not lined up with the rims, over tight bearings, fittings not properly tightened etc. Those are the sort of things that are not going to happen in the '8 minute check' or a large proportion of home builds.
We got some £59 specials from Tescos last year and took them round Llandegla as the "Sh*t bike challenge" stage of a MTB based stag weekend.
All fell apart, but was pretty funny. And yes, we managed to get the forks the right way round, unlike 50% of the BSOs I see round town!
I stopped someone at Gisburn earlier this year, on a decent Trek full-susser, to point out to him that the forks were on the wrong way around. Its not exclusive to Halfords
andyrm - Member
We got some £59 specials from Tescos last year and took them round Llandegla as the "Sh*t bike challenge" stage of a MTB based stag weekend.
I rode one of these locally, it worked OK, but DAMN it was heavy and hard work... i was destroyed !!!
I rode one of these locally, it worked OK, but DAMN it was heavy and hard work... i was destroyed !!!
We were too! But I think the previous night's festivities were more to blame.......
a bike shop not a car parts shop with a side line in bikes
Is that still true? Do people still buy car parts now that opening the bonnet on your motor greets you with an inpenetrable mass of black plastic and changing a headlight bulb entails dismantling the front of the car? I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a car part from Halfords, 15-20 years ago I was in there regularly when I had a car that I could actually do some work on..
I would have thought bikes were a HUGE part of their business now?
I think their target market is a bit more 'innit' than the average STWer
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TO quote Pauline Calf "**** me Paul, it looks like you've covered it in superglue and ram raided halfords!"
Funniest group test ever...
[url= http://road.cc/content/feature/12692-scrapheap-challenge ]http://road.cc/content/feature/12692-scrapheap-challenge[/url]
It's like anything in life Not everyone can own a Porsche, Ducatti or Mansion.
Those who get a ~£70 BSO to ride to work on will probably be perfectly happy when they do some sums, no doubt the petrol savings and health benefits of buying one, mean that the average BSO pays for itself inside of a couple of weeks...
Of course if you bump the price up by a factor of 10 to ~£700 I doubt the maths looks all that enticing to most non-cyclists who could pick up a a knackered fiesta for half that amount and keep it on the road for a year with the change... that is kind of the mindset that keeps BSOs in the shops.
The Decathalon jobbies do look better for the commute than the Halfords offerings TBH.
True not everyone can afford a Porsche but that's not really a fist comparison.
The difference in money between a normal car and a Porker is huge but the difference between a piece of junk £70 and a half decent commuter bike is not.
I believe everyone can afford £250 which should get you something half decent to ride to work on or start cycling with.
For this money it should be reasonably well put to together and actually work.
So for the price difference of a few tanks of fuel you can have a shitter of a bike or something half decent.
What I really don't understand is these luncatics (and I see lots of them) commuting to work on the nastiest full suspension bike you have ever seen. They must really think they have a kid bike because it has a spring in the middle holding it together. I feel like educating some of these people and advising to get a fully rigid.
Stonster thanks for posting that group test. I laughed so much reading that it was brilliant.
Those bunch of lads deserve a pat on the back, it looked an epic boys adventure. They did very well not to get hurt.
Its more evidence to show these kind of bikes have no place anywhere. They are death traps.
tinytimbo - MemberTrue not everyone can afford a Porsche but that's not really a fist comparison.
The difference in money between a normal car and a Porker is huge but the difference between a piece of junk £70 and a half decent commuter bike is not.I believe everyone can afford £250 which should get you something half decent to ride to work on or start cycling with.
For this money it should be reasonably well put to together and actually work.So for the price difference of a few tanks of fuel you can have a shitter of a bike or something half decent.
What I really don't understand is these luncatics (and I see lots of them) commuting to work on the nastiest full suspension bike you have ever seen. They must really think they have a kid bike because it has a spring in the middle holding it together. I feel like educating some of these people and advising to get a fully rigid.
If it ain't broke, why fix it? I'd much rather have someone on a BSO commuting into work than one more car on the roads.
I was reading this thread and kind of assuming it was your standard horrible URT full suss thing, but then I saw the ad and found it's for their perfectly decent rigid. I wouldn't want one myself but they do the job. The tyres are a mistake mind, but that's just selling what people expect.
Fact is, loads of people will still choose the far inferior Trax full suss for £10 more.
Where's PhilsConsequence and his Carera when you need him?
At a Saturday shop group ride I used to go on a lot of people ride expensive bikes in the summer, then a few started buying Carrera's in the winter as they were less than they'd otherwise spend on shock servicing and drivechains etc. Most of those bikes were then used through the summer "ohh, I just fancied the hardtail this week".
The shop went out of business, not saying it was related to the number of people riding cheep halfords bikes, but it's an amusing coincidence.
As for destroying them on their first lap of a trail center, I nursed a £150 halfords BSO Saracen through 2 years of propper MTB'ing, then a £275 carrera through another 4 years (by this point I'd realized drivechains were replaceable).
Mi biek iz Kararer.
[url= http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5270/5892078548_bb4620fa4e_b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53860438@N06/5892078548/ ]IMG_0366[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53860438@N06/ ]Northwindlowlander[/url], on Flickr
(There biekz iz Sarcin, mi biek iz also Kararer)
[url= http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6117/6224852810_f3a3c4495a_b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53860438@N06/6224852810/ ]Old school[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53860438@N06/ ]Northwindlowlander[/url], on Flickr
Mine was identical to that Saracen hardtail in the 2nd pic! Even down to the plastic coated cranks and Chilli Works* suspension !
Although mine had black bars and silver/beige 7 speed combined shifter/brakes.
*I can only assume this was ironic.
We've still got all 3 of those bikes... sorry, biekz... in the garage. The hardtail's heavier than my downhill bike. The Raw's almost as heavy as my motorbike.
Yea, I remember getting the carrera afterwards which had an aluminum frame, deore groupset, forks made from magnesium rather than lead, etc, probably still weighed 30lb but it felt like a feather in comparison!
jam bo - Member
I bet the kid who gets one for Xmas will be made up and will be able to wheelie better than you...
POSTED 2 DAYS AGO # REPORT-POST
Don't think so mate, I am the f***king don at wheelies.
I used to race road rats on the back wheel of my dh bike. It was hilarious.
The roadies weren't to impressed and used to speed up and fly off.
I spent a year up in that london commuting on a giant hybrid I bought for £35, it had its quirks bit was a great bike, just as entertaining to ride as the 'proper' bike