Cheap fixies?

Frankie

Anyone know anything about this operation?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Returns-New-Singl ... 860wt_1165

GarethPJ

One simple question: If they're any good why are they selling so many returns?

stickman

Could be moronic chavs manhandling them around the warehouse, if a bike then gets a tiny scratch etc. no-one is going to want it as a new bike.

pitchshifter

Wouldn't touch them with a barge pole...

Frankie

but why? I mean, i would be cautious. But i was hoping someone would have a substantive reason for saying 'no'

GarethPJ

They look like the same bikes that were selling new for various prices below £200 last year. If they are the same then they're pretty poor quality. Are you aware of the BSOs selling for peanuts from sunday colour supplements? Well imagine the fixed equivalent. They were definitely a case of getting what you pay for. Or to look at it another way, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Think "where's the money" or more aptly in this case "think where was the money saved".

Frankie

Yeah, ok. The BSO parallel makes sense. I guess the first impression is that there is nowhere to lose money from .obviously fails on closer inspection

pitchshifter

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... d-10-35593

Read the owners reviews...

A bent frame is not cool...

And my favourite extract!
'have worked on a couple of these in the shop, and they are total garbage, on par with the worst argos/apollo stuff. Welds were a mess, the things weigh a ton, nothing was branded, spokes were super loose....... oh and the rims were drilled for schrader valves, thats quite a big hole in a narrow rim!'

ince

I say these for sale Costco, don't think they were much over the £150 in the shop and I do remember seeing a damaged (paint marks) green one for £90.

Costco are great for a lot of things but I wouldn't get a bike from there just like I wouldn't from any supermarket.

Captain Turok

I bought a Create (Unipack?) fixed gear bike last year. £150 IIRC, theres a photo in my sig.

In that time I've had to tighten some spokes and adjust the cup & cones in the hubs. You also need to move the chain ring to get a decent chain line, if you want to flip the hub and run it fixed.

Granted it is super cheap and not a high quality bike. But I've really enjoyed riding & messing around with my BSO. When I bought mine it was less than half the price of a Langster!?

GarethPJ

Captain Turok wrote:

In that time I've had to tighten some spokes and adjust the cup & cones in the hubs. You also need to move the chain ring to get a decent chain line, if you want to flip the hub and run it fixed.

The chainline issue has afftected much more expensive bikes than this. The earlier Genesis Flyers were affected IIRC. It's down to the fixed and free chainlines being different and the hubs being incorrectly assembled. The fixed chainline is nearer the centre line of the hub body so the hub body has to be offset on the axle to compensate. IIRC it's only a matter of a difference in spacers of about 2mm or so and the wheel redished to suit.

However the real problem with these bikes is not the heavy gauge tubing or little details like incorrect hub assembly. It's not even the messy welds, as long as the prentration is good and there are no inclusions they'll be sound whatever they look like. No, the problem is the poor components. A colleage had a geared hybrid bike of a similar standard (better than a £79.99 BSO, but not a proper entry level bike) and he found all sorts of things going wrong. The BB bearings had worn out after two weeks commuting - about 220 miles. The wheels bearings needed attention every few days days - this can only be caused by wear and they would have needed replacing in short order. The front brake cable adjuster stripped it's thread when being finger tightened! After less than two months he cut his losses and bought a Kona Smoke for about twice as much and couldn't believe it when, after three months of autumn and winter commuting, he'd only had to do the most basic of maintenance.

Think about a really basic cheap bike of a decent standard, complete with unbranded or self branded components. That's it, it's already got the cheapest components you could reasonably expect. The sort of thing even the most impecunious cyclist would be itching to upgrade before long. Now in a bike without mechs and shifters how are you going to save, say £100 on that? Bear in mind that labour costs will be limitted because most parts will be almost wholy machine made and the whole lot will be banged together in sweatshop at a weekly wage that would probably look more like your or my hourly rate. So where are the savings? The assembly of the components is already as cheap as it could be, therefore you're looking at two areas raw materials (Wensleydale that only looks like metal) and manufacturing tolerances (ball bearings that aren't round, etc.). All of which adds up to a bike that quite simply can't be built straight and wears out, corrodes and falls to bits in no time.

There are people out there who really want to believe that a Perodua is built to the same standard as a Mitsubishi (and having owned both I can tell you they're not). Come to that I owned a ten year old Daihatsu L501 that was better than the equivalent Perodua was when new. They'll buy their super cheap car and bore anybody who will listen about how its just as good as any Subaru, Ford or whatever, but it just isn't the case. Yes there are some cons and some bargains out there, but for the most part you get what you pay for.

Frankie

GarethPJ wrote:

There are people out there who really want to believe that a Perodua is built to the same standard as a Mitsubishi (and having owned both I can tell you they're not). Come to that I owned a ten year old Daihatsu L501 that was better than the equivalent Perodua was when new. They'll buy their super cheap car and bore anybody who will listen about how its just as good as any Subaru, Ford or whatever, but it just isn't the case. Yes there are some cons and some bargains out there, but for the most part you get what you pay for.

This is all useful. I won't be buying one Thanks for the free advice

stickman

I don't agree with people saying a 10kg bike is heavy, it's just not as light as a 7 or 8kg bike etc. I've got a 531 road bike and it's around 11 or 12kg.

GarethPJ

10kg? Nope it's 10.9kg. That's two whole pounds heavier in old money. Or to look at it another way 24lb rather than 22lb. Or four whole pounds (20%!) more than my early Langster.

Well I've recently built a SS MTB from a basic old frame and set of parts, and that weighs in at about the same as the claimed weight for these. And there are two things to bear in mind there; firstly the MTB is fitted with 2.1" wire bead tyres which must weigh getting on for a kilogramme each; and secondly it is a claimed weight, I can't think of many bikes that have met their claimed weight. So yes I think a claimed 10.9kg is heavy for a single speed road bike.