Good bike brands gone bad

The Rookie

I thought it would be (vaguely) interesting to name and shame those bike brands that had good reputations and have managed to loose it by putting their anme on cheap tat....

Muddyfox
CBR
Raleigh
(all of these sell that horrible generic full sus frame with their poor name on it)
Reebok (started OK, good trainers, but now rubbish bikes)
Saracen would be here, but the 'new' Saracen under Madison has brought it back from the brink

Any others?

njee20

Who are CBR? I've only ever heard of them in catalogue context!

cat_with_no_tail

njee20 wrote:

Who are CBR? I've only ever heard of them in catalogue context!

This

The Rookie

CBR started off fully badged as Claude Butler Racing, then spun off more to make reasonable MTB's but sub the main CB models, was bought by Falcon when they bought CB and now devalued to a catalogue brand - classic good brand gone bad!

Noting my daughter has a CBR attack framed bike, ally frame, seperate mech hanger (usually signs of reasonable kit) made in circa 2006.

mak3m

on Saturday i was in Sports Direct with lil miss mak3m, waiting as she tried on some running gear. Ended up in their bike section looking at a Muddy Fox BMX with a 90% orange plastic drive train, which looked like it would last 1-2 rides tops

I was ashamed for them

Beardface

Orange?

Someone had to say it.

mrmonkfinger

Iron Horse... now owned by that famous bike maker Dorel, and making supermarket specials.

njee20

CBR started off fully badged as Claude Butler Racing, then spun off more to make reasonable MTB's but sub the main CB models, was bought by Falcon when they bought CB and now devalued to a catalogue brand - classic good brand gone bad!

Mmm, I'd always have put Claude Butler in the 'slightly crap' category if I'm honest! They did a really natty looking carbon thing for a while, weighed a ton, was just an alu frame with a carbon wrap.

I'd put them with Ridgeback, nowt wrong with them, but I'd hardly say they've sold out!

nicklouse

mrmonkfinger wrote:

Iron Horse... now owned by that famous bike maker Dorel, and making supermarket specials.

so gone back to what they started of with.

should see Raleigh all over Mainland europe. way better than the UK version.

supersonic

Raleigh are big in the US. Is all about brand strategy country to country.

Dorel are absolutely massive.

Chunkers1980

Ie they don't seem to have one in the UK. Girl at works Raleigh in x small 450 worth is complete pants and weighs as much as the moon.

NickintheLakes

The Beginner wrote:

I thought it would be (vaguely) interesting to name and shame those bike brands that had good reputations and have managed to loose it by putting their anme on cheap tat....

Muddyfox
CBR
Raleigh
(all of these sell that horrible generic full sus frame with their poor name on it)
Reebok (started OK, good trainers, but now rubbish bikes)
Saracen would be here, but the 'new' Saracen under Madison has brought it back from the brink

Any others?

I agree re Saracen.

Back in the 90's I had a Kili Pro Elite that I had tricked up with XTR right through (dealers did that sort of thing back then, don't seem to want to change a saddle on a new bike these days) - very nice bike.

Then some time later they seemed to go all mass-market producing family bikes for Halfords.

Maybe Pace should be on the list. Not that they produce crap but I had one a decade back and they were a really 'in' brand but seem to have faded away in my eyes.

jay12

NickintheLakes wrote:

The Beginner wrote:

I thought it would be (vaguely) interesting to name and shame those bike brands that had good reputations and have managed to loose it by putting their anme on cheap tat....

Muddyfox
CBR
Raleigh
(all of these sell that horrible generic full sus frame with their poor name on it)
Reebok (started OK, good trainers, but now rubbish bikes)
Saracen would be here, but the 'new' Saracen under Madison has brought it back from the brink

Any others?

I agree re Saracen.

Back in the 90's I had a Kili Pro Elite that I had tricked up with XTR right through (dealers did that sort of thing back then, don't seem to want to change a saddle on a new bike these days) - very nice bike.

Then some time later they seemed to go all mass-market producing family bikes for Halfords.

Maybe Pace should be on the list. Not that they produce crap but I had one a decade back and they were a really 'in' brand but seem to have faded away in my eyes.

they're bikes are pretty good now. just no one wants to buy it becuase they used to be a crap for a while

tlw1

NickintheLakes wrote:

The Beginner wrote:

I thought it would be (vaguely) interesting to name and shame those bike brands that had good reputations and have managed to loose it by putting their anme on cheap tat....

Muddyfox
CBR
Raleigh
(all of these sell that horrible generic full sus frame with their poor name on it)
Reebok (started OK, good trainers, but now rubbish bikes)
Saracen would be here, but the 'new' Saracen under Madison has brought it back from the brink

Any others?

I agree re Saracen.

Back in the 90's I had a Kili Pro Elite that I had tricked up with XTR right through (dealers did that sort of thing back then, don't seem to want to change a saddle on a new bike these days) - very nice bike.

Then some time later they seemed to go all mass-market producing family bikes for Halfords.

Maybe Pace should be on the list. Not that they produce crap but I had one a decade back and they were a really 'in' brand but seem to have faded away in my eyes.

aahhh, pace - my first & second sets of forks - always lusted after their frames

meagain

Raleigh has ALWAYS put its name on - and used to build - cheap tat, though always with a few top enders for publicity (not for the profit!). Don't get to be one of the largest volume brands producing only high quality!

Saracens? After over 50 bikes have come and gone....all my 4 remaining are Saracens! Early to late '90s. Two Tange Prestige Kilis, one 853 wish-bone seat stay later Kili and my favourite (and cheapest bike I've ever owned) c. 1992 TuffTRax Elite. Any sudden influx of funds and one of the latest Saracen HTs WOULD join them, if only for purposes of comparison.

Anonymous

Raleigh cheap tat in the 70s and 80s was still an expensive bike in those days for the budget most people had. They just still sell the same tat and everything else has got more expensive.

mintedox

I saw a muddy fox with rear suspension when I was a kid and thought it was ace, had never seen anything like it before. Tried googling it but can't find it. Was probably about 1990. Diamondback were ace back then too.

esspeebee

njee20 wrote:

Mmm, I'd always have put Claude Butler in the 'slightly crap' category if I'm honest! They did a really natty looking carbon thing for a while, weighed a ton, was just an alu frame with a carbon wrap.

The Claud Butler brand has been slightly crap since about 1987, when it was bought by Falcon. Before that, they were excellent. My dad had one from the '60s, which nearly 50 years later is still nicer to ride than most modern sub-£1500 bikes.

It's a classic good brand that gets into financial trouble, bought out, and attached to absolute crap.

Daz555

I remember the day it went wrong for Raleigh. It was the day some nobber decided to replace the iconic badge with a cheap sticker.

The Rookie

It's easy to forget how far bikes have come, a 1970's Raleigh (I had a Hustler) was far from a bottom end bike, even if the features on it would now be considered bottom end!

YeehaaMcgee

mintedox wrote:

I saw a muddy fox with rear suspension when I was a kid and thought it was ace, had never seen anything like it before. Tried googling it but can't find it. Was probably about 1990. Diamondback were ace back then too.

Genuine, honest opinion. I'd say that the first suspension bike worth riding was the San Andreas Mountain cycle.
then the GT LTS/STS, then the Marin Mount vision and derivatives.
I wouldn't even entertain riding any other pre 2000-era full suss bikes. Almost without exception, they were fu**ing awful.
(and yes, I count the GT RTS in that awful category, take off those rose tinted glasses for a minute)

supersonic

Probably the Muddy Fox Interactive:



RTS did help to launch FS to the wider scene, they sold loads and actually looked into pedal bob.

YeehaaMcgee

RTS was still crap though.

Wow, that Muddyfox looks odd :shock:

nicklouse

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

RTS was still crap though.

Wow, that Muddyfox looks odd :shock:

a bit like an early Bionicon

NickintheLakes

I had one of these Alpinestars Cro-mega c'97 - good bike but it did flex badly. Can't get badder than giving up entirely.

cooldad

Klein?
Well they never really got as bad as that one.

The Rookie

A friend is currently building a Muddyfox interactive.......

tlw1

The Beginner wrote:

A friend is currently building a Muddyfox interactive.......

when you say 'friend', I assume you mean you

The Rookie

Funnily enough when I said a friend, I meant a friend (fellow cyclist I work with, has a 36er (home built), a GT Zaskar team and various other bikes.

'I' don't have to make up friends..................

tlw1

The Beginner wrote:

Funnily enough when I said a friend, I meant a friend (fellow cyclist I work with, has a 36er (home built), a GT Zaskar team and various other bikes.

'I' don't have to make up friends..................

neither do I, as I've got the internet..........

Chunkers1980

I have you marked as foe, so I don't count.