What is a BSO?

[Bodhbh]

I may add I have mountain bike friends who buy £5000 mountain bikes to take part in amateur Enduro events.
They get panned by kids on £999 Bossnuts from GoOutdoors. Bike snobs is one thing but it’s even worse when they don’t have the fitness & talent to ride them well.

What would happen if the snobs where on £500 bikes and the kids were on £99 ones? Or £250 bikes and the kids are on £50 ones? At some point when you buy cheap it will start to hurt.

 

[Edwardoka]

Only if it is fake, the PC was launched in 1981.

Curses, foiled. I should have made a distinction between personal computer and IBM PC.
The IBM PC was indeed launched in 1981, but Intel's 8086 processor was launched in 1978.

 

[MichaelW2]

The key points of a BSO are not just cheapness but unsuitability for even normal everyday riding.
Low end full suspension on a £99 bike is unsuitable for any purpose. Using steel but in fat tube profiles to mimic aluminium is a typical BSO ploy, adding excess weight for no gain
The Apollo non suspension bike shown early in this thread is not necessarily a BSO. Non sus bikes would need grossly misaligned frame and forks to qualify for BSO status.
Low end Shimano components are remarkable effective and durable. No name components on BSOs are uually made of very soft, bendy metal and less effective and easier to mash up during maintenance.
The boundary between a cheap but usable bike and a BSO can be drawn if you ignore bike snobbery and just look at basic performance and durability.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

It's quite simple. A BSO is a cheap piece of crap bike made with cheese components bought from a supermarket or similar.

This really gets to the bottom of it. A BSO is something that was already a piece of junk at the point at which it left the factory gate, and is incapable of ever being a reliable bike even with proper maintenance.
The problem is the term BSO is widely misused, often deliberately, to merely describe cheap bikes - even if that cheap bike is fully functional and works reliably. A heavy MTB or Hybrid with all-steel components might legitimately be called a tank, but just because a cycling snob on a £5k carbon wouldn't touch it with a bargepole doesn't automatically make it a BSO..
I've got some cheap bikes (well actually all my bikes were cheap but some were quite pricey when new), but I don't consider them BSO's. Even my 90's Apollo MTB pulled out of a builders skip isn't a BSO. It works exactly as it should and I've covered hundreds of miles on it as a local hack. A true BSO will get binned before it's factory-fitted set of tyres have worn out.

 

[smutchin]

I wholly agree with the last two posts. The term “bike-shaped object” is pretty self-explanatory really - it describes an object that superficially resembles a bike but doesn’t function adequately as one.

Price is not the determining factor.

I have a £40 Sterling House job in the garage that came free with a washing machine some years ago. It has never been truly rideable, but I am trying to get it to a useable state to donate to a friend who will keep it in her static caravan for short errands while on holiday. It should be just about good enough for that use but it is pretty much the definition of a BSO.

 

[smutchin]

Bike snobs is one thing but it’s even worse when they don’t have the fitness & talent to ride them well.

This kind of snobbery where people are deemed not worthy of the bikes they ride is just as bad.

 

[Threevok]

What would happen if the snobs where on £500 bikes and the kids were on £99 ones? Or £250 bikes and the kids are on £50 ones? At some point when you buy cheap it will start to hurt.

I once owned a Promax Aggressor - that hurt quite a lot

 

[DCBassman]

If it cost less than you paid for your bike it's probably a BSO, and you get to sneer at it.

In the other hand, if it cost more than you paid, you get to tut and roll your eyes and say "all the gear and no idea".

Great answer!
However, my once-upon-a-time-quite-upmarket Scott cost me nada. So, ist ein BSO, nein?

 

[beepbeep]

so my tricked out Raleigh Lizard mtb would be ok for a coast to coast next year ????

 

[Threevok]

so my tricked out Raleigh Lizard mtb would be ok for a coast to coast next year ????

Depends on how "tricked out" it is

If by tricked out you mean upgraded wheels and drive componets then - yes

If you mean coloured brake cable outers and padded seat cover, then - not so much

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Curses, foiled. I should have made a distinction between personal computer and IBM PC.
The IBM PC was indeed launched in 1981, but Intel's 8086 processor was launched in 1978.

Inded but computers such as the ZX80 used the Z80 chip which was not made by Intel. The Tandy TRS-80 launched in 1977 also used the z80 chip, made by Zilogs. In the UK market I am not sure home computers used much of Intel. I remember writing assembler programs on the TRS-80 back in the day. The later BBC Micro used the Acorn 6502 Risc chip, and I remember writing RISC assembler on those in the early 80's. Acorn of course turned in ARM the designer of most of the chips used in modern smart phones. Dragon computers used a Motorola CPU, as did the Amiga.

 

[mjr]

The later BBC Micro used the Acorn 6502 Risc chip, and I remember writing RISC assembler on those in the early 80's. Acorn of course turned in ARM the designer of most of the chips used in modern smart phones.

Oooh I'm not sure you remembered that right. The BBC's 6502A was by MOS Technology (later part of Commodore - but the BBC Model B+ switched to Rockwell's 6512A and the second processor extension used a WD 65C02 - yay, compatibility!). The "RISC chip" you're thinking of was probably the ARM chip in the BBC Archimedes (later Acorn Archimedes).

Anyway, the first "personal computer" with "an Intel processor" was arguably 1973's Micral N, based around the Intel 8008, so I expect there were some of some sort made in 1978... but not as many as BSOs, probably!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Oooh I'm not sure you remembered that right. The BBC's 6502A was by MOS Technology (later part of Commodore - but the BBC Model B+ switched to Rockwell's 6512A and the second processor extension used a WD 65C02 - yay, compatibility!). The "RISC chip" you're thinking of was probably the ARM chip in the BBC Archimedes (later Acorn Archimedes).

Anyway, the first "personal computer" with "an Intel processor" was arguably 1973's Micral N, based around the Intel 8008, so I expect there were some of some sort made in 1978... but not as many as BSOs, probably!

You are right it some time since I wrote 6502 interrupt code etc.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Programmed with punch cards. Wow that Micral truly does represent an early edition of personal!

 

[Elybazza61]

If you worked in a bike shop you would defo know what a BSO means