[Closed] worst mountain bike products....EVER!

what's wrong with fingerless gloves or bar ends 😕

No. 1, right out of the door - loved them on my XC. Only just recently took them off as the brakes didn't compare to modern standards, but if I could have upgraded to new ones, I probably would have.

I've also had lose spacer (annoying) and I don't mind fingerless gloves, though tend to ride barehand XC in the summer...

how many people though were guilty of marketing them as the next best thing............

nah bar ends need to stop really. fingerless gloves tho, they're great for the summer.

I'd put bars over 750mm but I'm sure that'd provoke howls of derision...

It shouldn't be products that people just don't like or have since been improved, it should be things that just didn't do anything better at the time they were new.

So on that basis, fat saddles should remain on the list.

Flippy shifters as much as I don't like them clearly do work for some so shouldn't be there.

Bar ends definitely have uses so they're off the list.

Zyzxx forks are as bad as they say so they stay.

Onza pedals ditto.

Still have bar ends, and a long stem!

I agree with most of their list though, and even acknowledge they have a point about long stems.

What on earth's wrong with fingerless gloves?? I use them for most of the year - I must be a sad loser...

fisher fat possum is the worst ever mtb product.

Worst website ever more like. Twas awful to use with my phone.

nemesis - Member

I'd put bars over 750mm but I'm sure that'd provoke howls of derision...

That's like putting in top tubes over 23" People have different needs and preferences when it comes to sizing.

This is a mtb equivalent of daily mail click bait. Journo writing crap to get a rise.

I'm sure it was lighthearted, but the author lost all credibility when he wrote...

If you thought riding with SPD’s was dangerous then you obviously never rode with toe clips.

Surely the worst thing about that page is the formatting- I hate those slow to load slideshow lists, what's wrong with a simple page you can scroll down.

Dirt magazine in reusing old article shocker...
FWIW, most of those products were raved about at the time, or just taken as being part of the mtb landscape (fingerless gloves being one of the worst products??? Really Dirt???) Elastomer forks fitted a need for suspension, just as 27.5+ does for some niche today.
Even the bloody article reckons that some of the items worked well in correct conditions.

No isis bottom brackets? Or Shimano rapid rise mechs?

Somehow I had the wit to resist elastomer forks, and got myself a really nice tange steel rigid at exactly the point where useless suspension was taking over the world. Got slagged for that at the time but I've still got that bike.

But, sadly, it did have a flexstem. Pretty much useless at best, and then the elastomer squashed/perished and not only was it useless, the bars weren't really attached to the bike any more. All rounded, or rather sharpened, off with a shape designed to hack off the penis of any man unlucky enough to crash into it.

On the other hand, I found it in the garage a few years ago and used it to build a gopro mount for the motorbike, which it was really good for.

I still quite like bar ends, in the right place.

7/10 for whoever wrote that article, some of those products are just there to fill space. Suspension seatposts should be in there and fingerless gloves shouldn't nor bar ends, they were effective.

Isis possibly

RR rear mechs, again, much as I don't like them plenty of people do so I don't see those as an awful product in itself.

The dirt subscription I had for Christmas isn't on there??

I had number 1 and I know a fella in this very office who has put XT ones on his brand new Boardman (though it is a hybrid).

TheBrick - Member
This is a mtb equivalent of daily mail click bait. Journo writing crap to get a rise.

Jeez, maybe it's just "a bit of fun" 🙄

nemesis - Member

RR rear mechs, again, much as I don't like them plenty of people do so I don't see those as an awful product in itself.

RR sort of make sense - making it easy to drop to an easier gear, with the "more difficult" shift hapenign when pedalling.

But if you're tried to live with one bike running RR and others on regular, it's an easy system to hate.

5 for me <edit> 6 I own an STI brake/shifter, never used tho)
elastomer forks - pretty lame but in it's time arguably better than rigid (but yeah coil/air better)
long stems - maybe have a point
toe clips - in their time better pedalling than flats only, clipless obviously a massive improvement
bar ends - nowt wrong with them just look crap with risers
fingerless gloves - ditto, not my cup of tea nowadays tho, prefer lightweight full finger

FWIW, most of those products were raved about at the time

Or Shimano rapid rise mechs?

But if you're tried to live with one bike running RR and others on regular, it's an easy system to hate.

OK, so what can we all (or almost all, this is STW afterall) agree on?

URT
Isis BBs
Zyzxx forks
Onza pedals
...

yep, pretty sure I read some glowing reviews of the zzyzx

Well if you only rode it round the carpark... 😉

Go Pros - making mtbers look like nobbers the world over. You know when you look at 90's mtb images and wince at the helemts/shorts etc, in 10-15 years that'll be helmet mounted go pros.

My old Onza pedals are the most free-spinning things that I own. I loved them back then. Bar ends are great if the geometry allows/needs them, ditto long stems!

Onza pedals were fine. At least they didn't do like Eggbeaters do and explode mid ride.

ISIS bottom brackets are top of my list. I managed less than 60 miles in the dry on one before it started to develop play. (As a comparison my other bike had a square taper that lasted 5+ years riding in all kinds). ISIS ****ing joke.

UST is a terrible idea, but that was obvious from the outset so I never bought one.

Mavic 230 rims were pretty bad, amazingly light even by current standards, but they lasted a season of lightweight XC riding at best.

should have renamed the article "we hate anything not enduro"

URT
Isis BBs
Zyzxx forks
Onza pedals

Never tried any of them.

A few nerves being touched methinks?

Could it be possible some forum members will be walking in to shed, looking at bike and bursting in tears in the non too distant future?

Well I never tried a Zyzxx fork but there was a clear consensus that they worked for about 5 minutes so that's enough for me 😉

The others were indeed rubbish or at least inferior to other products available at the time.

I've never read Dirt magazine and based on that load of bollox, I never will.

[quote=nemesis ]OK, so what can we all (or almost all, this is STW afterall) agree on?

Isis BBs

Nope - still have one on my (admittedly now very dated) MTB. Works fine. Admittedly there were a lot of really rubbish ones which wore out quickly (I tried a few before getting my current one), but then I used to get through a lot of Octalink BBs. Ironically I use an AC one which didn't have a great reputation, but it's been fine and a big advantage is that you can just replace the bearings.

fisher fat possum is the worst ever mtb product.

I got caught with one of those too.....utter rubbish

I agree that ISIS can work but it didn't really fundamentally improve things and was flawed - the standard for ISIS made the use of small bearings necessary.

I'm amazed that no-one else has mentioned loose end caps in hubs before. Mrs PJM has a set of Ringle hubs with 20mm adaptors that will never stay in situ, no matter what.

I'd happily see whoever designed them get a shoeing.

As did Octalink, which at least IME wore out faster than the ISIS BB I currently have, yet didn't get the same level of hate.

I'm surprised they haven't dragged all the old coffins out; Tioga Disc drive, multicolour lycra, purple anodising...

Oh hang on, that's come back.

Octalink had bigger bearings though so while it may not have been more reliable than all ISIS bbs, it was inherently a better design.

A few nerves being touched methinks?

Could it be possible some forum members will be walking in to shed, looking at bike and bursting in tears in the non too distant future?

This.

Sometimes the 'reviews' on here written by owners of new bikes are hilarious for that classic 'new bike syndrome' impartiality....some of the tat being sported by riders when i'm out on the trail is cringeworthy too, cant work out if a lot of it is fashion led or purchased based on glowing reviews from magazines that have a questionable past with regard to honesty....

...as with everything though time marches on and can be cruel, what is percieved as decent kit now will i'm sure be seen as borderline dangerous in 20 years time as we make genuine progress with improving the handling, braking and drivetrain efficiency of the bikes we ride....the flip side is that some of the stuff being pushed at the moment as improvements or innovation will be laughed at in a 'what were we thinking' kind of way and quietly forgotten.

But if it's that obvious, you'll be able to list it right now. So what are they? And not stuff that will be improved in the future, but stuff that's genuinely rubbish right now.

Bar ends, I remember them, back in the day when mountain bike riders used to ride up long climbs and being able to change hand positions made going uphill more bearable. Now they just push uphill or worse still get a bus. The world has gone mad!!!

Fingerless gloves, stinging nettles. Not a problem on the road but definitely a problem offroad round here.

PJM1974 - Member
I'm amazed that no-one else has mentioned loose end caps in hubs before. Mrs PJM has a set of Ringle hubs with 20mm adaptors that will never stay in situ, no matter what.

I'd happily see whoever designed them get a shoeing.

None of these come close to being as annoying as the asymmetrical nature of a USB plug

Bar ends mostly made sense because our bars were stupidly narrow. I remember when I found out they'd gone the way of the dodo and thinking, "But I need those, for leverage when honking up climbs!" Then got a bike with a mighty 680mm bar and discovered that what I actually needed, was bars wider than my stem.

I wouldn't mind a set inboard of the controls though on my xc bike, just to get an extra hand position- like tiny tri bars.