Bargain?

[Vitesse]

RSO Road shaped object. I am no bike snob (heck i ride 2 Halfords carrera`s) but seriously you cannot get a decent bike for £80 brand new. Would you even use one as a winter hack?

Used a similar bike that cost £50 from ToysRus through a couple of winters. No problems in 2200 miles, and still going fine (although the rear tyre only lasted 1400 miles, shock, horror).

 

[Mark_Robson]

If an £80 bike gets people into cycling then that's a result. If they only want something to take to the park with the kids for an hour then it will be fine. We forget that everyone has to start somewhere and a lot of people wont, or cant pay the kind of money that we pay for a bike.
I hate the term BSO.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Here's the spec

:
Carbon Hi-Mod Fork: Hi-Mod+ Full Carbon Front Derailleur: SRAM RED Rear Derailleur: SRAM RED Shifters: SRAM RED Chainset: Hollowgram SL BB30 Chainrings: 39/53 tooth chainrings Bottom Bracket: BB30 ceramic bearings Cassette: SRAM OG-1090 11-26 tooth Chain: SRAM PC-1090 Front Brake: Zero Gravity Rear Brake: Zero Gravity Brake Levers: SRAM RED Handlebars: Zipp SL Ergo 31.8mm Stem: Zipp SL Speed 31.8mm Headset: Carbon Top Cap Rims: DT Swiss RRC 425 front and RRC 525 rear Front Hub: DT Swiss RRC 425 Rear Hub: DT Swiss RRC 525 Spokes: DT Swiss Front Tyre: Schwalbe Ultremo Tubular, Super light version 700x21c Rear Tyre: Schwalbe Ultremo Tubular, Super light version 700x21c Saddle: Fizik Antares with Carbon rails Seatpost: USE Alien Cyclops Carbon 31.6mm

Spec. for what? - Argos Challenge Road Bike @ £79 ????? You must be joking ........

By the way ... it is possible, and really helpful, to insert a link using the 'insert link' facility on the reply box toolbar then if interested you don't have to go through all that Google search business looking for 'Argos Challenge" ..... etc, etc, etc

 

[Mark_Robson]

He was

 

[Vitesse]

He was

Yeah, that's the £99 Super DeLuxe model.

 

[cyberknight]

Maybe to people on here, myself included, who are all spoilt by having enough disposable income to afford better.

I'd have loved something as good as that bike (comparitively) when I first started riding on a clunker of a forty-ninth-hand sit up and beg.

If you can only afford £80 and not £250 then that is your entry-level bike, and the £250 machines that we might call "hacks" are, from that perspective, "dream machines"

Yes it is true , i would like a bike costing £1000 but i cannot afford one, so to me riding a £2k+ machine is a dream .
A £300 bike is all i can afford/justify i think its all a matter of proportion if it gets people cycling all the better .
I think we are just trying to let people know the limitations of a bike and hope that they will continue to cycle after the components let them down.

 

[chillyuk]

£80 would be a struggle for me, and I would have to take some convincing to spend it from my pension. However, if I needed a bike there are many Raleigh, Peugeot and other good 80/90's makes on Ebay, Amazon etc at affordable price. A good second hand against a crap new doesn't take too much work out.

 

[swee'pea99]

I agree there's far too much snobbery about bikes and airy comments along the lines of 'anything under £xx is going to be crap', but that does look like one horrible piece of crap, at any price. More likely to alienate than enthuse. I'm with chillyuk - £80 will buy you a nice reliable 80s/90s bike. At anything around the ton, 2nd hand has to be the way to go.

 

[Mark_Robson]

[quote name='swee'pea99']I agree there's far too much snobbery about bikes and airy comments along the lines of 'anything under £xx is going to be crap', but that does look like one horrible piece of crap, at any price. More likely to alienate than enthuse. I'm with chillyuk - £80 will buy you a nice reliable 80s/90s bike. At anything around the ton, 2nd hand has to be the way to go.[/QUOTE]Agreed but I think that a lot of people who buy cheap bikes buy them on impulse with no idea of what constitutes a good bike, that's where the market is for that type of bike and for the casual riders it's enough for their needs.

 

[MLC]

Just in case any one else was confused by my earlier "spec post" yes that was in jest I copied the spec from an 8k Cannondale

To enter the snobbery debate:

I started cycling on what could be deemed a RBSO (road bike shaped object) and had it for a year. It is now my leave at station on commute bike it cost £189 and I've scalped a couple of bikes that cost ten times that !!!

I have now moved to a Spesh Secteur sport which some may also look down on because it is not the Elite or Comp or Sports ultegra. but it was a very big step up from what I had and |I would imagine the same the further up the price range you go.

I did journey to Decathlon at the weekend and they were demonstrating this.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/comp-pro-fc-900-72884310/#AVANTAGES

It was rude not to have a test ride on it of course !!!!

This would be a good example of a decent bike with a decent spec and it rides very nicely thank you. I was chatting to the guy he said he was showing it off to show that Decathlon aren't just about cheap bikes they also do quality he also said that if that was made by any of the big boys (Specialised, Trek, Cannondale etc etc) it would be flying off the shelves but cos it has B twin on it it doesn't and I must admit I did concur!!!

My opinion only but there should be no room at all for snobbery in any sport whatsoever and I try to take that philosophy and apply it to life in general as well.

If sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, then Snobbery is the lowest form of .......

 

[MLC]

[quote name='swee'pea99']I agree there's far too much snobbery about bikes and airy comments along the lines of 'anything under £xx is going to be crap', but that does look like one horrible piece of crap, at any price. More likely to alienate than enthuse. I'm with chillyuk - £80 will buy you a nice reliable 80s/90s bike. At anything around the ton, 2nd hand has to be the way to go.[/QUOTE]

Agreed

but as regards second hand - as a fairly new guy I remember going through hell when trying to source my first bike. I knew very well that second hand would get me something better specced than the same new however I probably like a lot of others knew nothing about what to look for in a bike. I did not know what Sora and Ultegra were let alone knowing what one was better. I can honestly say I was scared to go down the second hand route for fear of being taken advantage of or being ripped off or buying a stolen or broken bike so I resorted to buying a cheapie new. I also didn't know if I would like cycling or not so the thought of laying out £ 600 (which is a lot of money) for an entry level bike for a sport that I didn't know I would like was never actually gonna happen.

It is only now a year down the line with the benefit of hindsight that if I was put in position of having to buy for the first time now I would feel fairly confident about knowing what to look for and what size of bike I would want. back then I would not have had a clue and obviously Argos' clever marketing men have seen this gap in the market and are exploiting it to the full.

 

[swee'pea99]

These are all true and fair points. There's also the factor that when you buy 2nd hand you're quite likely to need to do some basic maintenance sooner rather than later, even if it's only fitting a new tyre or some brake blocks - and if you have to get your LBS to do it, it starts eating into your savings.

However...nothing's unsolvable. Finding out about old bikes is way easier than it used to be. Google. As to fear of your seller being a scally, swap a few emails - it's pretty easy to judge who you're dealing with. And on the maintenance, you can get a helluva lot of help thru' sites like bicycletutor, youtube, parktools and sheldon brown - and here!

Basically, if you want a new bike that's going to be fun to ride, you're probably looking at £300+ for a minimum. Choose carefully and you can get a much better bike 2nd hand for under £100. But it does take time & effort. Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice...

I still wouldn't take that Argos if it came free with a bag of Walkers cheese & onion, mind...

 

[Steve H]

Oh I love Cheese & Onion crisps! I'd definitely get sucked in by that deal.

 

[Vitesse]

The problem with secondhand is that you if you pay £80, or whatever, you usually need to replace a few bits and pieces, and these can easily cost another £80. Just a cheapo wheel, tyre and tube will be £40, probably more.

At least with a RBSO you know that it's all new, if not necessarily the finest quality!

 

[cyberknight]

I did journey to Decathlon at the weekend and they were demonstrating this.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/comp-pro-fc-900-72884310/#AVANTAGES

It was rude not to have a test ride on it of course !!!!

This would be a good example of a decent bike with a decent spec and it rides very nicely thank you. I was chatting to the guy he said he was showing it off to show that Decathlon aren't just about cheap bikes they also do quality he also said that if that was made by any of the big boys (Specialised, Trek, Cannondale etc etc) it would be flying off the shelves but cos it has B twin on it it doesn't and I must admit I did concur!!!

.......

MM nice but i don't like it i mean wheres the rack and mudguards