The worst bikes ever made

JMcP92

This is a place for the worst bikes ever, ugly is bad, but doesn't make a bad bike, this is for straight up terrible bicycles.
I come to think of this as a couple of months ago my older brother asked me where to look for a bike online, I recommended standard stuff, Evans, CRC etc. he ignored me and went to Halfords, coming back with this horrible thing:
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165499
You know it's bad when it lists the suspension as "Front", and it is bad, I've ridden it, after being "Professionally set up" I had to adjust the gear cos they were gonna jam if they stayed where they were, and the brakes because it didn't stop. It hardly stops now, but it is better.
Beyond that, it has to be the heaviest bike I've ever picked up, it's uncomfortable, you bounce the forks the landing is rougher than crashing a BMX into the ground face first - End result, cycling it makes me sad.

Any other competitors for the worst bike ever competition?

scottfitz

Its better than no bike.

bluechair84

JMcP92 wrote:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165499

Beyond that, it has to be the heaviest bike I've ever picked up, it's uncomfortable, you bounce the forks the landing is rougher than crashing a BMX into the ground face first

But it's a budget bike, what did you expect it to be? I'd barely even call that a mountain bike and unfit for discussion amongst other mountain bikes.
Bad bikes, like good bikes, tend to be of personal preference. I for one really don't like the Mongoose Freedrive suspension design - but others on here love it. I think the Cannondale Prophet 'freeride' setting was seriously flawed, but in normal setting it was great. Otherwise, I really don't think there are bad bikes anymore and anything we call bad now is only in comparison to current expectations. Older 'bad' bikes were probably better than what they had at the time...

rockmonkeysc

It may be bad but can you do much better for £130?

shigllgetcha

The minute I read the title I thought apollo

Funny thing is it gets 4 out of 5 stars. I guess you have to lower your expectations to match the price

When I was younger I never had a new bike and they were all crap makes but I loved them

querhoch

hmmm...a low budget doent neccessarily make a bike bad. The new Carrera range, for example, are for the main part very good bikes and none of them are anything like high end. same goes for the Saracen hardtails of the past 4-5 years.

the worst offenders are the BSO's that have tried to pass themselves off as real bikes to fool the casual and unaware buyers. the supermarket/argos bikes should come with a disclaimer that reads 'This is NOT a mountain bike. Try riding this on anything more extreme than gravel and you'll DIE!'


Saying that, ive had some bloody awful 'big name' bikes over the years, a Trek Boulder full susser being the one that immediatley springs to mind. Nothing on it was particularly bad (for the time and price) but it was badly balanced, super twitchy and twangy.i really hated riding it. I had a Specialized Rockhopper a few years back that felt horrible to ride too. the riding position was pitched forward and the HA was so steep it constantly felt like I was about to faceplant.

The very worst bike Ive ever owned was a raliegh full susser. cant remember the model, but the bushes that held the swingarm on would work themselves loose after about an hours riding. it was overbuilt and stupidly heavy, you couldnt buy a rear hanger without buying a full bushing kit too and the wheels were made of tinfoil. a truly dreadful bike.

97th choice

No point having a thread on bike shaped objects, it's too much like shooting fish in a barrel.

rockmonkeysc

Appollo bikes may not be great but the last one I had did over 8000 miles and had the chain lubed once with no problems. Rear hub eventually disintigrated but other than that I couldn't fault it.

Rucks

The kind that sits in the shed

Northwind

querhoch wrote:

hmmm...a low budget doent neccessarily make a bike bad. The new Carrera range, for example, are for the main part very good bikes and none of them are anything like high end

The cheapest Carrera MTB is almost twice the price of that apollo!

querhoch

low budget cannot be compared with cheap crap.

benpinnick

Kirk revolution... Looked cool... unfortunately the manufacturer hadnt really considered the fatigue life of the Magnesium alloy they used. Ooops.

(image deleted by admin as the embed was from a reported malware site)

ilovedirt

I dunno, a mate of mine had one of these, and it was pretty damn awful in really every way you can think of. You know, unless you like riding a bike with crap geometry that is needlessly heavy on the rear end with no real benefit...

JMcP92

Fair point, bad bikes from good brands are worse than bad bikes from bad brands, least you expect what you pay for with an Apollo

RevellRider

benpinnick wrote:

Kirk revolution... Looked cool... unfortunately the manufacturer hadnt really considered the fatigue life of the Magnesium alloy they used. Ooops.

I'm surprised to see that the Kirk in the photo has lasted long enough to have an external bottom bracket fitted

rockmonkeysc

The 2010 and later Giant Reign X is pretty bad. They took a great riding, bombproof bike and made it fragile and a boring ride. I had one and got through more suspension linkages than brake pads!