£100 for a cheap bicycle shaped object with cheap components that is hard to assemble, won't last, will not be safe and will be unpleasant to ride.

Or £180 for a bottom of the range Giant MTB (last year's model in the sale) with decent components that will last well, will be safe and great fun to ride.

Some people are soooooo stupid!

Where do Halfords come out on this as Britains biggest cycle retailer. They sell look-a-like bikes under £100 to Boardmans £grand jobbies.

saying people are stupid is a bit harsh! they're just not educated in the bike market, so as far as they're concerned, thats almost double the price for something that looks the same, and does the same job.

I don't see what the problem is with these £100 bikes to be honest. One of the mtb magazines done a feature a while ago where they bought a bike for £100 and rode it on an all day-er around the lake/peak district (can't remember). Ok, it wasn't very comfortable, and quite a lot of it wasn't working by the end of it, but it was still rideable. So these cheap bikes can take a bit of abuse.

My only gripe is the instructions. The only thing that is going to cause a failure in the bike is if its put together incorrectly, not the cheap components (to a certain extent). I don't see a problem with someone buying flat pack bike, and giving it to a bike shop to assemble. Customer gets a cheap bike thats safe, bike shop gets £40 for an easy half hours work, everyone's a winner.

At the end of the day, all bikes need bits replacing, whether it cost £100 or £1000 and I'd much rather spend £100 on a bike to ride around town and use the other £900 to repair and maintain it for 10+ years!

Not 'stupid' - just 'uninformed'.

When buying items that they don't know a lot about, on the spur of the moment (Which is probably the case with supermarket bikes), people are generally driven by cost and looks. Build quality and durability don't generally come into the thought process.

It's unfortunate, but I'd say that this is the way that most of these sales take place.

@dot1,

You're right, the main issue is not the fact that these bikes are cheap - it's the fact that they're assembled by the buyer, and they might not have the skills to do a good job of it. You could just as easily spend £500 on a bike, but if it comes 'flat-packed', there's a good chance that the build will be the weak point.

Some people just can't afford any more which is one reason why these bikes exist.

I bet we've all bought cheap sweat- shop clothing at some point that feel apart all too quickly or bargain bin no-name batteries that lasted 60 seconds...A false economy perhaps, but we aren't all smart enough to see beyond a price tag.

The way of the world is that there will be very expensive and reasonably priced goods at one end of the spectrum that do what they are supposed to do well and for a long time. And at the other end of the scale there will be unbeleivably cheap goods that work ok and last not very long.

It's getting a little boring hearing the same old story too!

Tescos had three bikes on display when I went in on Saturday. Two of the three of them on display had been assembled with the forks the wrong way around.

We got a bike from Decathlon for £100. Spot on. Does the job really well.

I'm not sure it's the consumer that the issue is targeting here more so the manufacturer / retailer. I'm sure you would all question whether to buy a car that was £500 brand new, because you all know that something like a car can not be manufactured at a price like this, and it's not all that different from bike either.

The bigger story here is not necessarily comfort or aesthetics, but safety! The quality of the components used has been found (not in all cases) to be potentially dangerous. This issues has been covered by BikeRadar in the not too distant past, check out the below link to watch the story they covered. Funnily enough they did give it to a bike store for assembly and the staff their were pretty unimpressed by what they saw.

http://bicycleshapedobject.wordpress.com

- Why are you poor?

- Because I'm stupid.

- Why are you stupid?

- Beacuse I'm poor.

How many badly assembled bike related accidents are recorded each year? Would be interesting to find out!

This sort of issue being constantly discussed might encourage government meddling/money making - ie MOTs for bikes! arggh!

This is the most snotty nosed report I've heard of. Get real guys.

If I goto the pub I take a bike that is worth £100, I leave my shiney £2.5k Dawg supreme at home. I lock my rubbish bike to a lamppost or a fence outside the pub and don't worry about it being stolen because noone will bother, its a load of rubbish, but hey, its better than walking the 2 miles home from the pub after a drink or dinner with friends. This is your typical useage of a bike.

Your not going to want to leave a £300 bike locked to a fence outside a pub because it won't be there when the time comes to go home!

This is the reason these bikes are successfull, that and the fact that £300 is a lot of money to people who earn £12k a year.

I hate this snotty nosed approach, its bad advice and I think these reporters need to review their reports and take a step back and realise that they may well be a lot more fortunate than a lot of people who can't afford a £300 bike for commuting and a £2k trail bike for weekends etc... Time to shut up and close this stupid report. These bikes are not dangerous, I've not seen anyone riding with back to front forks, I've not seen bikes fall apart randomly when people are riding them unless they are jumping etc....

Your typical student wants cheap travel to and from campus; after all a bike is free to use, but they don't have £300 to splash out on a shiney new bike and if they do, they've probably got other things they want to buy....... I know plenty of people who had bikes worth less than £100 bought from the likes of Halfords and Argos that used them everyday for the full 4 years whilst at university, its not unsafe to use such bikes, and these reports only look bad on keen cyclists.

Sometimes I hate being labeled a cyclist because many of us really are snotty nosed poncy snobs who don't have a clue or even a thought for the poorer population. The only way to increase the quality of these bikes is to increase the quality of the components and therefore increase the price of the bike which would deter people from buying one in the first place.

the voice of reason speaks!

The issue with the BSO's I've seen is that they (to the layman/woman) look like a MTB. They even refer to them as "Mountain-style bikes".

Buy one for riding around town. No problem. Even use it down a dirty track on the edge of town. Fine. You'll love it.

Just don't expect it to get you up/down anything remotely 'mountain'. Someone will get hurt.

I've spoken to my LBS's about these, and people that bought them are never too impressed to find that it will cost them £20 for the LBS to build it for them - that's 20% of the cost of the bike!

The other problem is that if everyone bought their bikes this way then there aren't going to be any LBS left to take them to be set up.

@junglist_matty - I have seen bikes with the forks on backwards, and I have seen BSOs start to literally fall apart.

It's great that you have a 100 quid bike that holds up, but many of them don't, and that's the problem. It puts people off cycling, and, yes, puts them in danger. A bike with lousy brakes or that fails like the ones mentioned in the early 90s Watchdog report (did you look at the video and the injuries people sustained?) is dangerous.

That doesn't make us snotty, it makes us concerned bike advocates.

@junglist_matty

Is your 'rubbish bike' a second hand runabout, or a brand new £100 BSO from a supermarket? I once spent £15 on an ancient Peugeot 'racer' that no-one in their right mind would want to steal. However, it was reliable and needed almost no maintenance for the year or so I commuted on it. AFAIK, someone might still be using it to get to Uni or College.

I wouldn't bet on the same thing happening with one of these useless pieces of toss that the article is talking about...

"a proper bike from a proper bike shop"

says it all really.

*very* interesting that entry level bike prices are unchanged over the years at 300 notes, I was expecting you to say they've risen, but I'm sure that's the rose coloured sunglasses that we all look at the past through showing up again.

The safety issues of poor assembly/brakes is of concern - but I believe that the vast majority of these are bought for short journeys to the shop or bimbling in the park with kids. it's just not worth paying more. Not everyone will become a keen cyclist, even if they get a nice bike. the stink of bike snobbery is getting up my nose.

and no-one uses them for "serious" mountain biking - they'll be lucky to see a towpath.

The apollo 3200 i bought from halfords in 1994 is still going strong, now in my father-in-laws hands (legs?).

Just watched the video - should have done that before my first comment;

1) They focus on whether these bikes are good enough for proper mountain biking - a bit different to whether its valid for some people buying a bike for bimbling

2) "He thought he was buying one of the best mountain bikes around" well he's a total idiot then. Thats a totally different proposition to buying something cheap because you don't think its worth/can't afford to spend more

3) the issue of cheap bikes that aren't high quality needs seperating from the dangers of flat pack

"Some people are soooooo stupid!"

Not a very helpful attitude. Not everyone is going to be an expert at everything. If they were, there'd be no need for programmes like Watchdog, or magazines like Which?

Bikes should not be sold flat packed, end of! I have seen it so many times people cycling along with the forks the wrong way around, one guy I saw said he'd just got it from Halfords like that! You should support your local independent bike shops or before long there won't be any left, most also sell second hand bikes that will have been checked over.

@ John Stevenson

I don't think it's the bikes that are dangerous, it's the people that buy them and sadly you cannot legislate against people that either have no sense or haven't the skills to assemble bikes properly. Bearings, brakes and gears are not rocket science and are a whole lot more robust if only you set them up and maintain them properly. That chap on the video thought he was buying the "best mountain bike money could buy". That's laughable if he bought one of those £100 jobbies. That's like me buying an MX5 and expecting it to drive like a Ferrari. Sadly you don't know how his forks failed and I can only suspect he was trying to take it down a mountain. The same goes for the little girl. We haven't a clue if her brakes were set up properly in the first place so it's usless attempting to draw conclusions based on that level of info.

Sadly people lose their brains when deciding to make this kind of purchase. Bikes can be quite dangerous not because of their price but due to the speeds involved. However some people lose their common sense and think they can just screw the things together. The same thing happens with flat packed furniture and we've all laughed at our mates who've got zero DIY skills and own leaning wardrobes/drawers.

Unfortunately we live in a declining society where people have turned into vegetables. I mean, if cheap brakes aren't as positive as Dura Ace then all you need to do is to account for this when riding and brake a little bit earlier. You don't need a degree to work that out. If your forks are the wrong way round then maybe you shouldn't be on the road in the first place. I can't believe this kind of ignorance can be turned round and the blame put on cheap bikes.

To quote our man Lance Armstrong "It's not about the bike"

Fact is.

If the store get the bike assembled correctly a shopper will see it and it may look attractive and, at sub-£100, good value. The customer sub-conciously will see their purchase as this finished bike, the reality is that they get a box of bits and without adequate tools and knowledge a purchaser cannot achieve the ideal end result.

The store bears a responsibility to tell a purchaser that their purchase could look like the displayed bike if they have the correct tools etc. or that the bike is assembled by a qualified mechanic for about £40. Or the store bites the bullet and pre-assembles the bikes (by a mechanic) and ups the price by £20.

Could work you know

@Escargot

If people are generally unlikely to have the skills to assemble a safety-critical piece of equipment, then it should be impossible for them to buy it unassembled. This is why you can't buy a toaster with no plug, or a self-assembly fridge.

As for the brakes, there's no reason why all bikes should not be able to brake to the limits imposed by the laws of physics with reasonable hand force (decelerate faster than about 0.5g and you go over the bars, a limit caused by the position of the rider's centre of gravity on the bike). That's far from the case with these bikes.

@PBo

Self-building and bike quality are hard to separate, because it's exactly these low-quality bikes that are widely sold flat-packed. Reputable bike makers usually forbid their dealers from selling bikes unassembled.

Amen.

@ don don

No, it was a silver and red Appollo fully rigid I bought it from Big W in North Bristol (2003), pretty much similar to this type of bike:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_711011_langId_-1_categoryId_165499

...Before I got into mountain biking when I was about 10 years old I had a Ralleigh Michegan mountain bike which was another steel rigid bike for about £100 that lasted 4 years of kiddie riding before I bought my first propper bike for riding off-road... GT Tempest.

@ Jon Stevenson

There's no reason anyone should put forks on backwards, there's plenty of photos of the bike and I'm sure that the bikes come with a bit of paper showing how the bike should look.... You don't buy a flatpack wardrobe and stick the mirror doors on back to front, its called common sense....I've never ever seen a bike with the forks on back to front in my 12 years of riding, so you must live in an area full of retards.

This along with the numerous times I've been out riding and don't ever see rubbish bikes on red or black trails because they stick to the green trails because they know they don't have good cycling experience.

I would love to take you to every single station in the country during office hours and check out every single bike that is locked up (i.e. bikes regularly used for commuting), we'd soon find that 90% are around the £100 mark and that none have the forks on back to front.

Also take into note that even a £2.5k bike fails and becomes dangerous to ride; only the other day my rear deurailleur (XTR Shadow Carbon) lost all tension and the bottom chainline was dragging on the floor, I didn't realise at first because there was still chain tension on the top chainline, but then the chain came off the top line and got tangled in the front mech which made the cranks lock and I nearly flew off at about 20mph. Every bike is there to be used and things will break and need replacing.

"if the budget won’t stretch that far, a decent second-hand bike from eBay. "

Really? so to an uninformed member of the public, you think this is safer than buying a flat pack bike? There are no unscrupulous people selling bikes on ebay? buying something that has potentially worn components, could have been crashed, jumped or may have hidden cracks etc then cleaned up, is a realistc alternative to buying a flatpack with new components, instructions etc?

All of these bikes should have passed the relevant standards and any of these retail giants will have checked this out in great detail before even considering putting them on sale.

If there was no demand for bikes at this end of the market, people wouldn't buy them and they'd sit on shelves and they'd go away. I think the fact that there was the similar piece done in the 90's and these bikes are still selling highlights this perfectly.

There are, it seems still alot of people who neither wish to purchase or can't afford to purchase bikes of more than £100 plus for whatever reason , as some of the comments above have shown.

What i've never understood is that some people are unwilling to spend more than a couple of days wages on something than has the potential to be such an amazingly useful tool.