worst mountain bike products….EVER!

franksinatra – Member
I don’t get the derailleur hate. I’ve been mountain biking for 20years and have only ever broken two. That is not a bad ratio.

Where do you ride? The point I’m trying to make is they’re fine if you stick to established trails, but they are useless once they get tangled up with the undergrowth if you go off piste.

They are a limitation on the use of a mountainbike.

eg, this sort of riding

I’ve had my rear disk jammed up with heather, so what would happen to a derailleur is anyone’s guess.

over the past twenty years (which predate trail centres I have ridden Chilterns, North Wales, Lake District, Highland, Yorkshire, Borders, Alps……….

Maybe I have just been lucky, or I am not gnar enough

franksinatra – Member
…Maybe I have just been lucky, or I am not gnar enough

Sorry, I stuck the explanatory pic in as an edit while you were posting.

But gnar has nothing to do with it. I just don’t want to get stuck on the face of a mountain with a borked gear mechanism.
If I had a derailleur I wouldn’t be riding in those places, I’d stick to trails.

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

My only just purchased, Tesco Clubcard funded, subscription doesn’t seem to be on there either.

Most people don’t ride those places, and don’t want to ride those places. So maybe the derailleur makes it onto your personal list of worst mountain bike products ever for you, but certainly not the more general one we’re discussing.

Then again I’ve done more than my fair share of hike a bike (I’d guess more than 99% of riders), and I’ve only ever broken one rear mech on a bike.

I just don’t want to get stuck on the face of a mountain with a borked gear mechanism.
If I had a derailleur I wouldn’t be riding in those places, I’d stick to trails.

But if you bork your mech you just shorten your chain and singlespeed it off the hill.

What are grip shifters doing in that list , that’s just stupid .

How about the crud comb , hite right pre dropper post thingie , slingshot bikes and Tioga disc wheels .

epicyclo – Member
I’ve had my rear disk jammed up with heather, so what would happen to a derailleur is anyone’s guess.

I’ve had a few occasions where heather has gotten stuck in my derailleur with no damage to show for it. It’s not much different to small sticks getting caught up back there. You quickly realise what’s happened and it takes a few seconds to pull it out. They’re sturdy things.

What a pile of piddly poo. I still have bar ends on a couple of bikes (stubby ones admittedly, not like the Ned Overends I had back in the day) and they’re brilliant for climbing and variety of hand positions. Also help you get weight forward on steep climbs. Would have them on all bikes except DH if it wasn’t for the fact most carbon bars don’t get on with them. On bikes without them I quite often find myself riding with my hands sat on the end of the bars as if they were there on long climbs.

Had Onza HOs and while a bit inconsistent they did the job for a few years.

I like fingerless gloves in the summer – just rediscovered them actually.

My RS Judy DHs did a good job for several years.

Quill stems were a pain in the arse, as were old style headsets and bottom brackets. The comedy of trying to stop on cantis (even with Ritchey red pads!) still makes me appreciate my discs.

Oblongbob – Member
…I like fingerless gloves in the summer – just rediscovered them actually.

…Quill stems were a pain in the arse,..

I like fingerless gloves in summer. Can hook my jelly babies out of my pocket without stopping. 🙂

I miss quill stems though. It’s nice to be able to change your bar height on a long day. Just need a return to the old prewar Brampton style to make them less hassle.

Still use bar ends ,fingerless gloves all the time, a 150mm stem and toeclips on one or other bike

What a bunch of old curmudgeons you are, riding around in your remote mountain bogs, with your bar ends, toe clips and 150mm stems! 😉

FWIW

MBUK ran an article about how to file down/drill out your components!

I was just thinking about this very article the other day – and trying to remember if it were real, or I’d imagined it!

Toe clips were an awful necessity, as were the Onza elastomer pedals that replaced them for me. Useless things. Bar ends.. Sigh.. Bar ends.. How I miss my tubular welded aluminium Specialized ‘Control Sticks’. I think Ned Overend ‘ran’ them on his XC ‘rig’ at the time. They were probably useless though. Elastomer forks, were a joke.

The only thing I balk at on that list is the Girvin forks. The late (oil / coil spring) ones were ACE. Apart from when the bushings collapsed and took out the soft aluminium mountings beneath them. Okay, they were probably crap too.

I think the Dirt perspective on this list has made it very gravity-oriented, hence fingerless gloves being seen as like a condom with a hole in the end. Fair enough if you are totally Gnar in everything you do, but probably not if you are an old STW curmudgeon.. 😉

Well I’m glad to see fingerless gloves are considered an essential in summer, as that’s what I thought!

Rapid Rise was ace and I’d use it now if it came in 10sp.

+1

Kinda gutted I went ten speed when I had a perfectly functioning RR mech in my bike plus a brand new one in the basement.

Going up the cassette is easy. Takes the pressure of the mech on the climbs and means you can skip gears when descending rather than hitting the lever several times over.

I would put quick releases in the list as I really don’t see the advantage of them and they just seem to create a danger. Well documented people having accidents due to them.

Early forks were never strong enough and always breaking. Quite scary really.

There are plenty of first generation products which have since been improved. SRAMS first rear derailleurs jump to my mind as the jockey wheels would seize every single ride. Or egg beaters with the cleats that lasted a month.

I can’t get my head round the whole mtb hatred of ISIS or how they’re so bad. It’s pretty much the standard for trials and despite taking some severe hammer and abuse from a lot of riders they don’t really have much trouble with them??

Also, the original Tioga downhill tyres that everyone at Bike 99 had slung over their shoulder (me included). Most dangerous tyres in the world!

no_eyed_deer – Member

Toe clips were an awful necessity

They really weren’t. All you needed was a half sensible shoe and a half decent beartrap, sorted.

Avid brakes!?!

slingshot bikes

slingshot bikes are ace.

I can’t get my head round the whole mtb hatred of ISIS or how they’re so bad. It’s pretty much the standard for trials and despite taking some severe hammer and abuse from a lot of riders they don’t really have much trouble with them??

They are actually a good design for trials as the big fat axle is much harder to bend than the old square taper that existed before. The big problem however with ISIS is the tiny bearings that simply wear out in no time if you start putting decent mileage on them.

So to summarise great for trials, but sh*t for mtbing or road.

7,10,11 and 12. Nothing wrong with all them at the time imo. Spds weren’t invented back then, those bear (power strap maybe? neoprene thingy) things felt insecure, so toeclips/ straps were the thing. 130mm stems and zoom bar ends – all great because the top tubes were on the short side.

Also had purple anodised things, canti brake boosters (very trick), rear mech ‘protectors’ and prior to indexing, nice friction shift thumbies. Obviously rubbish now, but all good then.

I think for it to have been a rubbish product it needs to be ‘defective’ in some way at the time.

All you needed was a half sensible shoe and a half decent beartrap, sorted.

No one did though. I’ve got old mags and virtually ever rider pre-SPD in riding n clips & straps, no matter whether they touring in Scotland / Himalayas, racing XC or DH. Even the Trials guys were using those Powerstrap things.

Everyone I knew threw their toeclips in the bin, except for the one super-xc dude. I think it was one of those things you thought was essential because everyone did it and it was in the mags, but as soon as you tried anything else realised it wasn’t.

some of those products in the list were the best available at that time…/… as time passes and you look back that you realise how crap some stuff was

yes! Some of that list were crap full stop but others are just crap compared to what we have now so how can they end up on a mtb shitlist?
I’ve got some of the original bombers, pissed all over anything at the time, coil sprung oil damped absolutely lovely and still working today, but do I use them? No, they weigh more, flex more and are a bit short on travel compared to current stuff*. You can’t shoot down historic products (that were good at the time) just because they don’t measure up today.

But as epicyclo has proved crapness can be in the eye of the beholder, pretty sure most of us wouldn’t put dérailleurs on the list but if you broke several a year on your local trails you may well agree with him. See also all the US kit that works well in dry places but sucks balls in UK winter conditions.

*actually compared to 2007 stuff as most of my “current” forks are a good few years old now

but as soon as you tried anything else realised it wasn’t.

I ran clips for a while, at the time the choice was toe clips or crap flat pedals, they secured your feet to the pedals, good for a lot of riding but scary as hell when things went awry, once clipless came out I switched and never looked back*. If clipless had never been invented I bet some people would still be running them now – not for downhilling or scary superhard gnarcore trails that most STWers ride 😉 but there’d be some.

*did later give proper, grippy flats a go but I don’t like em for mtbing.

Elastomer forks, were a joke.

Why? What was better between 1991-95?

chestrockwell – Member
‘Elastomer forks, were a joke.’
Why? What was better between 1991-95?

Rigid. 🙂

That could certainly be argued!

Elastomer was ’95 on really – at least that’s when RS, manipoo, etc were all using them in the Judys and so on. While they weren’t a patch on either air or steel springs, they worked much better than rigid (but I’m assuming that was a joke) and they were certainly light.

isitafox – Member
I can’t get my head round the whole mtb hatred of ISIS or how they’re so bad.

I like ISIS, but it has to be a good quality one. It’s not a design that allows shortcuts on quality. Mine last for years, but maybe it’s because I never wash my bike or put it on the back of a car.

Elastomer was ’95 on really

Nah, they were on the way out by then. The original Judy was about as good as it got. Pre 95 the best forks were the Pace RC35’s, Manitou 1,2,3, and RS Mag 20/21’s. 2 of the 3 were elastomer then RS went that way as well. As soon as Bombers turned up (1996 or 97 :?) it was game over for elastomers but in the early days they were as good as anything else.

Forgotten my Manitou Mars Elite fork circa 2002. Flex-tastic.

Shimano Airlines surely needed a vote. Powering gearshifts with giant compressed air cylinders was surely a solution for a far bigger problem

While they weren’t a patch on either air or steel springs

Some of them were better than air springs….you never tried a Rockshox Mag21?

I had a Mag10 🙂

I didn’t find it too bad. Well, apart from the flex… If you added some oil to the air chamber it made them a lot smoother.

Besides, I was talking about current air spring models.

It’s one of those “20/20 hindsight” type articles from someone without the wit or imagination to have come up with anything themselves, Lazy writing from a magazine that, by the end, deserved to go down the shitter IMO…

Most of the “Terrible” products in that piece were simply points along the way to the awesome bikes we can buy today, which will no doubt, in years to come look equally dated…

The trouble with following fashion means you have to voluntarily loose all perspective on, and appreciation for history, even relatively recent history…

So yeah, whatever… everything was shite 15-20 years ago… 🙄

Elastomer forks, were a joke.
Why? What was better between 1991-95?

Marzocchi mx100. 2 inches of plush air travel. (which was near on impossible to set up owing to the small air volume in the forks)

So yeah, whatever… everything was shite 15-20 years ago…

This. I’m sure some WhatGnarlBike magazine will look fondly back at todays bike and mock us for using bits of cable to manually move gears around, or the madness of ditching all your front chainrings to have a smaller range of gears, or wearing matching helmet, top, shorts and gloves in royal blue or orange etc., or fatbikes, or 27.5+ etc. etc.

cookeaa – Member

So yeah, whatever… everything was shite 15-20 years ago…

To be fair, it genuinely was. Rose to the dizzying heights of “barely adequate” at best.