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There are still lots of completely awful bicycles on the market. The industry uses the term "Bicycle Shaped Object" - the cheapest possible machine that resembl

There are still lots of completely awful bicycles on the market. The industry uses the term "Bicycle Shaped Object" - the cheapest possible machine that resembles a bicycle to a naive consumer. Every possible corner is cut to bring the price down. You'll see plenty of BSOs at general retailers like Walmart and Target, often carrying the Schwinn brand. http://www.thecyclingexperts.co.uk/get-cycling/buying-a-bike/the-bicycle-shaped-object/ http://www.thecyclingexperts.co.uk/get-cycling/buying-a-bike... There are really two kinds of cyclists; enthusiasts who ride regularly and dilettantes who ride two or three times a year. The latter choose a bicycle almost entirely on price, because they don't know any other criteria on which to judge bicycles. These customers don't care that the bike will start disintegrating after a couple of hundred miles, because they'll never use it that much. The bike boom of the 1970s meant that lousy bicycles almost completely dominated the market, but the more recent bike boom has created a generation of much more savvy customers. The market has split into lousy department-store bikes and real bikes sold through specialist retailers.

brianwawok 10y ago
This is all correct. Walmart by me has row after row of BSOs for $79 to $99. The local bike dealer starts road bikes at around $999 and goes up to maybe $10,000, with most sales in the $1,400 to $3,000 range. Really no comparison in the products. I pedal hard enough I suspect I could break the crank off a BSO in a week. Keep meaning to buy one and write a blog about it or something..
- goldscott 10y ago
  Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    Bahaha that was amazing. Street biking is a little less aggressive compared to double black diamond mountain biking though so I should last a bit longer.
    - ItsDeathball 10y ago
      You might be surprised. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I didn't have access to a car and instead rode my dad's ridiculous full-suspension Schwinn (from Walmart) to and from work. This was a 3 mile round trip on flat asphalt. After two weeks, the weld joining the downtube to the bottom bracket actually split open entirely, leaving the bike held together by the suspension and chain tension. This bike was only a year old at that point; clearly it wasn't designed to be ridden beyond an initial burst of post-purchase enthusiasm. It's the only time I've ever seen the failure of a bike frame.
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        I've seen the failure of numerous bike frames. Most of them, as it happens, Schwinns. Though it generally took a few months at least.
tetromino_ 10y ago
I rode an $80 bike-shaped object from Target in grad school daily. I cannot say it was a reliable or well-built machine; over time, I had to replace almost all parts of it other than the frame with used parts from local bike stores and ebay. Nevertheless - the total lifetime cost of that bike and parts was far less than a "real" bike from a real dealer. An $80 bike can be a completely reasonable choice for someone who is not a racer, not a courier, and just needs to get from point A to point B every day.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  $80 will also buy a good-quality used bicycle with plenty of life left. Many of those bike boom era 10 speeds are still in circulation and some of them are truly wonderful bicycles. Cost is an important part of the equation, but it's not the only part. Naive bike buyers gravitate towards features that make a bicycle worse for everyday use. Knobbly tires provide more grip in mud, but less grip and higher rolling resistance on tarmac. Suspension is worse than useless if you're not barreling across a bumpy trail, which is why quality suspension systems have a lock-out to temporarily disable it. If you ask a serious cyclist to name the best all-round utility bike, most of them will name a classic tourer like the Dawes Galaxy. Here's what that looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Galaxy#/media/File:1995_Dawes_Galaxy.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Galaxy#/media/File:1995_... You'll find many similar bikes being sold for pocket change on Craigslist, because they don't look the part. Novices literally don't know what a decent bicycle looks like and the big box retailers are happy to pander to their misconceptions.
  - Decade 10y ago
    I consider the bicycle market to be totally a lemon market, so why not get the cheapest lemon, sometimes. The most irritating part is the lack of standardization. Every bike needs its own cassette remover and its own bottom bracket and its own brake pads. I’ve had 3 different road bike wheel diameters, 5 different crank standards, and 10 different axle standards. And then the big brands like Shimano are all too happy to have their name and parts associated with everything from crappy BSOs to luxury bicycles. Rarely do these details appear in the Craigslist ad, nor the bike store ad, even if I had the inclination to memorize the Shimano part list. Many ads don’t even list the length of the bicycle. I’m not sure about the “plenty of life” thing, either. Usually, I ride a bike for a couple years, and then some part of the frame cracks. Disappointingly, this almost never happens to the cheap department store “mountain” bikes. Usually, for those, the bottom bracket breaks.
flyinghamster 10y ago
Indeed. My first law of bicycles is: "Good bikes aren't cheap." Unfortunately, BSOs do a big disservice to cycling in general - bad experiences discourage potential riders. I'm a long time recumbent rider, and people accustomed to BSOs tend to blanch at the price of a recumbent, even when it isn't out of line with what a good bike generally costs, and even when they'd happily spend that much or more on a bag of golf clubs.

brianwawok 10y ago

This is all correct. Walmart by me has row after row of BSOs for $79 to $99. The local bike dealer starts road bikes at around $999 and goes up to maybe $10,000, with most sales in the $1,400 to $3,000 range. Really no comparison in the products. I pedal hard enough I suspect I could break the crank off a BSO in a week. Keep meaning to buy one and write a blog about it or something..

goldscott 10y ago
Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU
- brianwawok 10y ago
  Bahaha that was amazing. Street biking is a little less aggressive compared to double black diamond mountain biking though so I should last a bit longer.
  - ItsDeathball 10y ago
    You might be surprised. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I didn't have access to a car and instead rode my dad's ridiculous full-suspension Schwinn (from Walmart) to and from work. This was a 3 mile round trip on flat asphalt. After two weeks, the weld joining the downtube to the bottom bracket actually split open entirely, leaving the bike held together by the suspension and chain tension. This bike was only a year old at that point; clearly it wasn't designed to be ridden beyond an initial burst of post-purchase enthusiasm. It's the only time I've ever seen the failure of a bike frame.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      I've seen the failure of numerous bike frames. Most of them, as it happens, Schwinns. Though it generally took a few months at least.

tetromino_ 10y ago

I rode an $80 bike-shaped object from Target in grad school daily. I cannot say it was a reliable or well-built machine; over time, I had to replace almost all parts of it other than the frame with used parts from local bike stores and ebay. Nevertheless - the total lifetime cost of that bike and parts was far less than a "real" bike from a real dealer. An $80 bike can be a completely reasonable choice for someone who is not a racer, not a courier, and just needs to get from point A to point B every day.

jdietrich 10y ago
$80 will also buy a good-quality used bicycle with plenty of life left. Many of those bike boom era 10 speeds are still in circulation and some of them are truly wonderful bicycles. Cost is an important part of the equation, but it's not the only part. Naive bike buyers gravitate towards features that make a bicycle worse for everyday use. Knobbly tires provide more grip in mud, but less grip and higher rolling resistance on tarmac. Suspension is worse than useless if you're not barreling across a bumpy trail, which is why quality suspension systems have a lock-out to temporarily disable it. If you ask a serious cyclist to name the best all-round utility bike, most of them will name a classic tourer like the Dawes Galaxy. Here's what that looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Galaxy#/media/File:1995_Dawes_Galaxy.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Galaxy#/media/File:1995_... You'll find many similar bikes being sold for pocket change on Craigslist, because they don't look the part. Novices literally don't know what a decent bicycle looks like and the big box retailers are happy to pander to their misconceptions.
- Decade 10y ago
  I consider the bicycle market to be totally a lemon market, so why not get the cheapest lemon, sometimes. The most irritating part is the lack of standardization. Every bike needs its own cassette remover and its own bottom bracket and its own brake pads. I’ve had 3 different road bike wheel diameters, 5 different crank standards, and 10 different axle standards. And then the big brands like Shimano are all too happy to have their name and parts associated with everything from crappy BSOs to luxury bicycles. Rarely do these details appear in the Craigslist ad, nor the bike store ad, even if I had the inclination to memorize the Shimano part list. Many ads don’t even list the length of the bicycle. I’m not sure about the “plenty of life” thing, either. Usually, I ride a bike for a couple years, and then some part of the frame cracks. Disappointingly, this almost never happens to the cheap department store “mountain” bikes. Usually, for those, the bottom bracket breaks.

flyinghamster 10y ago

Indeed. My first law of bicycles is: "Good bikes aren't cheap." Unfortunately, BSOs do a big disservice to cycling in general - bad experiences discourage potential riders. I'm a long time recumbent rider, and people accustomed to BSOs tend to blanch at the price of a recumbent, even when it isn't out of line with what a good bike generally costs, and even when they'd happily spend that much or more on a bag of golf clubs.