Worst bike?

[al-fresco]

When I was a kid I was given an old 'Butcher's' bike - the type that had a huge iron frame on the front to hold a delivery basket. The front wheel was a smaller diameter to fit underneath the basket. Even in the 60s it was a museum piece. I think it had a rod and caliper front brake and a coaster at the rear - but it might just have had a coaster. Fortunately it was too heavy to get up any speed.

I took the basket frame off to reduce weight but that left a big iron lug attached to the front downtube that I smashed my knee into about once every 3 minutes. It was an evil thing to give to a child - riding it was like aversion therapy.

 

[Globalti]

I had one of those - my pal and I fished it out of a river with a hook on a piece of string. I sawed the basket off, got the local garage man to braze a hole in the chainstay made by the crank and fitted a front wheel off my brother's Triang bike. A 3 speed rear wheel, chunky tyre, some apehanger bars that I swopped for a cherished penknife and finally, a seat I made from bent copper pipe, wood and vinyl. I fitted a huge chrome headlight on it with a dynamo on the back wheel and somehow rigged the front brake to a cable to make it work while the back brake was cobbled together with a hole drilled through a frame bridge. It was a cracking chopper but it got stolen along with two other bikes from the cellar under our feet while we were having Sunday lunch. The Police recovered the two others on the Town Moor but I never saw the chopper again.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

My worst bike was an Emelle, which in my naivety I mistook for a mountain bike ...

A friend of mine had one of those. He used to go MTBing with the local "serious" crowd, with their two grand plus downhill things. One day at the top of a cliff at a disused quarry they were all riding, he was being sneered at by a bloke with a top of the range Cannondale. "You may sneer" he said "but I bet this'll get to the bottom quicker than your Cannondale". Whereupon he picked his bike up and threw it over the edge of the cliff.

My worst bike was probably the Pashley APB I had when I lived on a boat. They're nice bikes, but I think mine was a Friday afternoon model. Either that or the Ryan Vanguard recumbent, which is slightly unfair since there wasn't much wrong with it. But the chap who sold it to me advised me to set the seat so that my legs were absolutely straight at full stretch, and every time I rode it my knees hurt.

 

[Oldbloke]

Two come to mind; a "Universal" folder around 30 years ago which lived up to it's name whilst riding it, then snapped.

I bought a Lapierre Tecnic 500 2 years ago, didn't feel too heavy in the shop but what a monster it turned out to be. Seems to put on weight each time I used it.

Couldn't even bear to look at the horrible ungainly thing after a few months so sold it on.

 

[gb155]

I had a 25/30 year old Townsend Terminator, Steel Rims the works, was a steel frame, I wish I had kept it and SS'ed it now, truth be told it weighed a TONNE and was buggered but I still took it over 1000 miles and feel that it cemented my love for cycling, as opposed to a love of a good bike.

 

[david k]

cheap mountain bike, heavy and hard to pedal, terrible, my hybrid feels like a 3k road bike in comparrison

 

[Borbus]

I had a Claud Butler (ie. Falcon) bicycle which I got from my LBS for a discount since it was at was last year's model. It still cost about £200 iirc. It had suspension forks and a front disc brake.

The suspension forks broke when I tried to make them more stiff with the adjustment knob. The front disc brake was terrible, I actually had more stopping power with the rear V-brake. I thought that disc brake were crap for ages after that before I tried some real ones (now I have BB7 brakes).

The bottom bracket had worn down after a couple of years of light off road riding to work every day. I didn't really know it was an easy problem to fix back that so I probably left it too long but the LBS were not able to remove the bottom bracket from the frame meaning the whole thing had to be scrapped.

Then I bought a second hand Kona frame and rebuilt my bike myself and I haven't looked back.

 

[Wardy]

Probably my worst bike was one I bought from Currys in the 60's. It was all-steel and a bit of a lead-sled, but having said that it took me all around the Borders and into Fife and Perthshire from Edinburgh. It had a dynamo hub at the front and one evening, descending at speed, I felt a sudden check followed by a spectacular shower of sparks. One ex dyno hub!

 

[pepecat]

A steel frame mountain bike, 12 speed (mens, so I landed horribly on the crossabr a couple of times)... it was too big for me, and I HATED it. I had it maybe about 2 years. Got when for some unknown and half arsed reason i decided i wanted a mountain bike, and got rid of my all time favourite bike, a raleigh topaz racer.
Horrid, horrid bike.
And what did i buy last year? Another steel frame mountain bike, 12 speed, for clattering round and commuting on. I am clearly stupid.......It's reminded my why i dislike mountain bikes so very much.