Tag: Bike Shaped Object

#365daysofbiking Brand bland

May 10th – One of the odder brand crossovers of the last few years has been Land Rover branding bicycles.

Company 2×2 Bikes designs distinctly average mountain bikes and sells them under the Land Rover brand, hoping presumably that some of the off-road cachet is gained by association.

Looking at this one in a customer’s bike shed, it’s a decent, if unremarkable low end steed: Better than a bike-shaped object one would buy from a discounter but not great either.

I’d have expected a bike badged with this brand to be something unusual. I wonder if the bikes are less prone to breakdown than their 4×4 stablemates?

An oddly bland product with a strange association.

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March 30th – At Tesco, a reminder in the bike rack that there’s always someone having a worse day than you.

An odd bike was locked there – a Raleigh Jamtland ‘Special edition’ which is a very old-school, low end mountain bike. If the colour scheme rings a bell, that’s because they were designed and made to given as a gift by Ikea to many of their employees in the UK, I believe around Christmas 2010. They were not ideal commuting bikes, with poor gears, awful tyres and no mudguards, and many to this day end up being sold on eBay and the like.

Considering they were an act of largesse by a company known for radical design, they were just awful, cheap bike shaped objects, to be perfectly honest.

This one was in good condition, with little sign of wear,  other than a peculiarly worn front tyre, which I suspect had been swapped for the rear at some point. There was little or no rust, and the frame was barley scratched – but there was a slight problem. A puncture.

It was raining hard, the bike would not be a light push and no tools or repair kit were in evidence. I hung back a little to offer assistance if the owner appeared, but they didn’t.

My sympathies to the rider…

November 13th – The bicycles of Brum are becoming more and more diverse. In the city for an afternoon, there were a variety of beaters, bike shaped objects, fixes, singles and other steeds clearly with the primary purpose of utility.

The KTM city bike was interesting, with one of the most ingenious frame locks I’ve ever seen, but the ladies Raleigh was nice too, showing some interesting design. Bit concerned about the interaction between the rear wheel and back brake cable though.

The ladies BSO with broken front brake parked without a lock was scary too – and the brake disc equipped front wheel with no callipers on the bike told it’s own story.

That red fixie was someone’s pride and joy, too.

July 23rd – Riding back home this evening, something shiny in the road caught my eye – lying on the edge of Green Lane in Shelfield, the debris from something that really shouldn’t happen. It’s a shattered bicycle sprocket.

This would have been part of the cassette, or rear group of cogs an the back wheel  of a cheap bike. It’s been used, as the teeth are worn, and the chrome coating ground through. Decent sprockets are made from high-grade alloys or steel, with some flexibility. Generally, they’re pressed or forged. 

This one is low grade steel, and has been made from cast material, making it inflexible and weak. It’s a fair assumption that under load, it’s cracked, and at some point catastrophic failure has occurred, and other debris in the road suggested as much.

Cheap supermarket or discount store bikes are often fitted with this kind of cheap componentry and fail in this kind of manner. Deprending on when it failed, this kind of breakdown could be very serious, and cause the rider to be injured – imagine if this had happened when cycling up a steep hill, like Black Cock Bridge, further on?

If you need a decent bike, and haven’t got much cash, a better option is to look out for a decent secondhand steed. You’d be surprised what you can get from Gumtree or the small ads for the same money.

A very, very cheap bike really isn’t worth the risk or hassle. They’re cheap because they’re made out of cheese, bus tickets and spit…

April 4th – On the cycleway from Telford station, this sad sight. It’s a BSO, or bike-shaped object and is the kind of bike one might buy from a supermarket, discount store or catalogue for a low price. BSOs are usually made from the heaviest depleted uranium, bad weld and cheese. They feature the cheapest, most poor quality components, as they’re generally sold to folk who won’t ride them much. 

They are bought by retailers in bulk for between £12-£20 each.

This machine – clearly abandoned on the way to work (it had gone by the time of my return) – had failed in a way common to such bikes; the wheels, built by machines with no human involvement at all – are usually very badly tensioned, and can collapse, or ‘pringle’ (think of the shape…) unexpectedly. This one was sudden and catastrophic, ripping the rear brake apart.

Never buy a cheap bike like this, even if you’re flat broke. Look for something better, secondhand. Some real bargains can be had with patience. Riding a piece of crap like this will put you off for life.

Hope the rider got to work OK.

December 15th – There’s nothing like being prepared. Parked up outside Tesco, Brownhills in the wonderfully impractical bike racks, I came out to find another steed sensibly locked to the trolley store. The bike was a fairly nondescript Apollo (Halfords) bike-shaped object, but was absolutely loaded with panniers and bags. In the water bottle cage, a can of Wilkinson own-brand WD40.

There’s nothing like being prepared…