Since I’m the Bike Guy in the office I get asked for advice quite often. Today, I just barely deterred a colleague from buying a Wormwood Dual Suspension because it was discounted from £350 to £99.99… Now I’m not going to give it the BSO line because you can get around and have a lot of fun on pretty much anything, but still, you can do better I reckon… But the sub-£200 bracket seems to have gone downhill a bit and my standard options are gone.

Maybe cheapest not-a-total-BSO
£130 http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/hybrid-bikes/apollo-transfer-mens-hybrid-bike
£180 and huge bonus marks for looking like a proppa biek.
http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/mountain-bikes/falcon-progress-mens-mountain-bike-19
£200, one of those horrible looking carrera parts bin specials that are generally pretty effective :
http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/hybrid-bikes/carrera-parva-mens-hybrid-bike

These get bonus points for mudguards but the specs are pretty wobbly.
£200 http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/bh-bikes-london-lite-hybrid-bike-p343511
£160 http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/viking-buttermere-gents-18sp-trekking-bike-p355957

Decathlon’s cheaper options are all wacky looking, which counts against them… LBS options are just complicated what with not being so easily checked online but are there any really good value brands to check out that I’ve not thought of? Evans have a load of good looking stuff in the £200+ bracket but that’s a harder sell. Used, I don’t really want to get into tbh

BTwin Rockrider 340 from Decathlon looks OK and at £160 you can afford some more hybridy tyres for it.

It’s not that the £200 sector has gone downhill, just that inflation means you get less and less for your money at the same price point. £200 a decade ago is more like £270 now.

Ah hah, I missed that one, cheers! What are those seatstays all about?

I’d find an LBS that sells Dawes or a similar brand – They sell proper bikes starting at ~£200. It’s worth paying a few £££ more and going LBS at this price-point as they’ll offer a free service after 8 weeks and generally look after you in future. This looks solid:

http://dawescycles.com/product/discovery-trail-gents/

If your colleague doesn’t want to spend what it costs to buy a bike that is worth maintaining, let him learn his own mistakes.