BSO Feature....The Scrapheap Challenge!

Makes for a good read.

http://road.cc/content/feature/12692-scrapheap-challenge?dm_i=6IA,38LI,L1UYA,A3QD,1

Parents should be made to read this before buying.

11 miles is not long enough for a bike to last when you consider how kids treat these. The most common repair I have to do for the neighbours is bend the V brakes back into shape....

I hate BSOs with a passion, if they were nice simple rigid designs with a bit of quality around the gearing and brakes, they wouldnt be so bad.

Damn that's brave! Genuinely surprised someone didn't end up properly hurt.

interesting and entertaining, but not sure if there is a conclusion. These bikes arent designed to be jumped by national standard downhillers or to be cased on rocks, and its unlikely that they will be by their typical owners, who wont do any more that venture onto a disused railway track. As for kids using them, well our raleigh arenas with apehangers were continuously ridden with knackered rims, dodgy brakes etc, thats kids. give em a stumpy and guaranteed that too will be fecked after no time.
My next experiment - to take a basic level Corsa/fiesta from the showroom and race it as fast as poss on a couple of WRX stages and see if it stands up to the test. If not, then these sort of cars shouldnt be sold.

A mate recently got hold a BSO (no suspension tho) and I fixed it up for her. Its true that it was bit heavy and gear changes were vague, but it continues to work fine getting her around. Lots of italian cars have vague gear changes with wooly selectors, but thats no reason to dispell them.

I'd have rather have seen the test using 2 bikes @ £100, 2 branded ones @ £250 and 2 at £500 and then draw some conclusions.

The only thing I would change is to banthe addition of suspension frames and forks at this price level - its crap and unnecessary.

pigman":i3xxrgpj said:

interesting and entertaining, but not sure if there is a conclusion. These bikes arent designed to be jumped by national standard downhillers or to be cased on rocks, and its unlikely that they will be by their typical owners, who wont do any more that venture onto a disused railway track. As for kids using them, well our raleigh arenas with apehangers were continuously ridden with knackered rims, dodgy brakes etc, thats kids. give em a stumpy and guaranteed that too will be fecked after no time.
My next experiment - to take a basic level Corsa/fiesta from the showroom and race it as fast as poss on a couple of WRX stages and see if it stands up to the test. If not, then these sort of cars shouldnt be sold.

A mate recently got hold a BSO (no suspension tho) and I fixed it up for her. Its true that it was bit heavy and gear changes were vague, but it continues to work fine getting her around. Lots of italian cars have vague gear changes with wooly selectors, but thats no reason to dispell them.

I'd have rather have seen the test using 2 bikes @ £100, 2 branded ones @ £250 and 2 at £500 and then draw some conclusions.

The only thing I would change is to banthe addition of suspension frames and forks at this price level - its crap and unnecessary.

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actually, any car driven by a competent driver will do a rally stage quite well. Thats why they have Group N.

I had to ride my bike round cannock without a front brake, I did all right because I was competent. These BSO's make me angry because as mentioned in the first paragraph, people paying £70 think that is expensive and the be-all and end-all of cycling.


Halfords sell loads of BSO cack and show it being ridden off road - a nephew's Apollo bumped down a curb and all the bearings in the freehub fell out. the bike was a few days old.

I dont find BSO's amusing in any way - how they can be certified as safe to use is beyond me with plastic brake levers and resin brakes ans shocking build/ materials quality.

you make some good points LGF and I'm not going to argue outright. I put in some strong opinion cos the test was just nonsense and as overbiased at one extreme as the halfords marketing is at the other. They could have chosen a more moderate course, and maybe they had done by MTB standards, but to then take the worst bike crud and repeatedly pull stunts to prove it'll fall apart, lost the report its cred (for me anyway). if the author somehow wanted justification in spending £3k, he'd have done a better job by involving us in his passion from an emotional angle. I feel a better alternative would be to have tested these BSOs against reasonable branded bikes at affordable pricepoints and to then illustrate that for not that much more, youre buying into something that works for a long time and is safe.

- how they can be certified as safe to use is beyond me with plastic brake levers

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careful now, my utility bike has em

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/cabl ... brake.html

re the uphanger, cheers bud. a few retrobikers have sent me links, but I'm really trying hold out for an original Kona one, cos the rest of the bike is mid 90's. As a last resort, I'll get a modern one.

good read i agree and disagree with previous posts, i understand what pigman is saying in that the bikes should be tested against suitable competitors and on moderate tracks but also stated was that people will be using these on the roads, not too much abuse but even then these bikes dont seem to fair too well. the bikes are advertised as mountain bikes (or used to be, now mountain style) and have warning labels but, who reads a manual? not many. canal paths yes, roads maybe, off road no. as lgf said the bikes are generally depicted as being used off road, false advertising it sounds like? people dont want to spend time getting educated about things though, from a customers point of view they just want to buy a bike and get out and ride it, not faff around setting it up, paying loadsa money etc. thats what bso's are aimed at. most people are happy with them, the general consensus is that educated bike people dont like them, fair enough. its a sort of 6 of 1 dozen of the other argument. i personally dont agree with the sale of bso's though, due to health and safety, poor manufacture and the like. i think there should be a campaign aimed at educating people, showing that you can get cheap quality bikes for near enough the same amount of money. carrera are a good reprsentation of that but the consumer doesnt know that they just get a bike judged on features, not quality. im trying to be non biased in this

My first mtb was BSO but it survived years of abuse, the weak link being me not the bike. Also my first attempt at the Red trail at Glentress was on an Emmelle Missile with steel Zoom sus forks that bottomed out really easily. Fondly remember Spooky Wood as the best ever on that bike, stupid grin for ages after that and the single speed champs at Aviemore 2004 on same bike. I have seen sense since then and use better quality kit now