Where's the dividing line between a budget "proper" bike and a Junk BSO?

[gbb]

Heavy doesn't neccessarily make a bike a BSO(imo)
An old low end Raleigh 'racer...or other type, isnt and wasnt' a BSO.
A very cheap bike isn't necessarily a BSO...one guy at work brought a Toys r Us 'racer' some years ago, reduced from £100 to £50. It had cheap componentry but he commuted on it for a couple years. Remarkably good value.

A BSO to me is something that not necessarily has cheap components, but is unreliable or unfit for purpose...like the bike a mate brought off the internet...which broke a sprocket on the rear the first time he rode it. Utter cheap rubbish.

 

[Biff600]

It seems to me that the term BSO is purely a snob term.

When I joined this forum a year or so ago I had just brought my first bike, a Cannondale CAAD 8 105, and it was called a BSO by one of the members of this site !!

I now own a Pinarello Dogma with Di2, and I still get folk sniping at me !!

 

[Racing roadkill]

It seems to me that the term BSO is purely a snob term.

When I joined this forum a year or so ago I had just brought my first bike, a Cannondale CAAD 8 105, and it was called a BSO by one of the members of this site !!

I now own a Pinarello Dogma with Di2, and I still get folk sniping at me !!

Jealousy, or people pulling your leg normally. Of course there is always a hardcore of utter muppets who look down their noses at anything that’s not a custom build, with CK componentry, that costs north of 20 grand. They need ignoring IMO.

 

[summerdays]

Heavy doesn't neccessarily make a bike a BSO(imo)
An old low end Raleigh 'racer...or other type, isnt and wasnt' a BSO.
A very cheap bike isn't necessarily a BSO...one guy at work brought a Toys r Us 'racer' some years ago, reduced from £100 to £50. It had cheap componentry but he commuted on it for a couple years. Remarkably good value.

I agree with the first statement but not the second one.... having bought a Toys r us one for a similar price, it was really awful. We spent the purchase price on a new wheel within a very short period of time, it was really heavy and components mad of cheese. It would be my classic example of what a BSO was.

 

[DCLane]

I'm looking really hard... Does the bell look worth keeping?

Edit: actually, I bet you could turn the back end into a single wheel trailer with a bit of effort.

Steam off the decals and stick em on your fridge.

In the end I did neither - sold on eBay for £20 apparently for use as a one-off on a beer-fuelled camping weekend.

 

[Illaveago]

Oh dear! My wife has an Apollo. She liked the look of it , how it felt and it came with wheels, which if she doesn't get round to riding it I may find a use for.
I think the components seem fine, it's just that it seems to have been designed by a committee that didn't know what they were doing.
My wife only feels safe riding if she can plant both feet on the ground. This meant lowering the seat as far as I could. This then produced the knee hitting chin syndrome as the crank arms were too long. I have since fitted a new crank with shorter arms which feels better. She still hasn't ridden it but it is becoming more bike shaped.
I think that there is quite a bit of snobbery involved in what we assume are BSO. I'm one I must admit. I have never considered Emmelle a bike worth looking at. I don't know what they are like, I just didn't like the name, it sounded foreign. Did they come from 'empstead?
Some of it can come down to how much a person can spend on a bike. Splashing out on things which are expensive or that have a well known brand name are not always sound principles as some things can be made on the same production line but just labeled and priced differently.
Some things which we assume to be BSO's can be made better by up grading components. The drawback here is that this can sometimes cost more than the bike in the first place. So it may be better to spend a bit more money in the first place.

 

[crazyjoe101]

BSO isn't about snobbery for me, it's about quality and function. I grew up on £50-£100 Halfords bikes and they worked, I had some fun on them but they spent as much time being fixed as they did getting ridden and the spare parts or labour cost more than the bikes within a year. I'm not easy on bikes but I'm not abusive to them either, for me as long as the bike is robust enough not to be needing significant work every month then it is not a BSO.
The definition of course changes for each person, 10 miles a week puts on less wear than 100 and so different people will find they need their bike to do more or do less

EDIT: I think for every snob there is also someone who will judge people on how they are spending their money, yes maybe their money could be spend differently but is is their money and they can spend it how they like as long as they aren't going to be a **** and tell people they are worse because they have a cheaper product.