S
Simon Brooke
Guest
Every so often someone pops up on this bike asking whether they should
buy a £100 dual suspension mountain bike. I've seen these things often
enough and had to fix things on them, so my answer is always 'no'. But
today, visiting an relation in our beloved capital city, I was asked to
fix some things on yet another, and took the opportunity of riding it
from the bottom of Moooorrrningsaide up to the Bike Co-op and back (one
cannot visit Edinburgh without making the pilgrimage to the co-op, after
all).
The bike had been bought a couple of weeks previously, and had been
slightly misassembled. The frame was a particularly heavy variant on the
'Flying V' design, with a unified rear triangle pivoting immediately in
front of the bottom bracket. Front suspension was provided by a pair of
forks with about 35mm travel which felt like elastomer - it was more
damped than sprung. By contrast rear suspension was provided by a 'coil
over' unit in which that I could detect no evidence whatever of damping
action.
As far as I could see this was, in the words of the old Raleigh adverts,
an all-steel bicycle - the wheel rims were aluminium, but nothing else
was. The V brakes had arms stamped out of steel plate. The rear
derailleur was a pre-slant-parallelgram design, also stamped steel
plate, apparently a cheap and even nastier copy of the Shimano SIS
design. The rear dropouts were stamped out of comparatively thin steel
plate and would be very easy to bend. The whole thing easily weighed as
much as any two of my bikes.
Once I had the bike reasonably adjusted, as I say, I rode it. The action
of the shifters was light, if not at all positive. The rear derailleur
tended to upshift under load, presumably due to flex in the pivots, and
the one time I got out of the saddle to sprint this effect caused me to
sit down again extremely rapidly. Apart from shifting under load, the
rear derailleur was quite reluctant to shift up, presumably because of a
weak return spring.
Performance of the suspension was pretty much as predicted. First the
good: the limited travel of the front suspension coupled with the poor
performance of the front brake meant that there was not excessive
brake-dive. Then the bad... where to start? The suspension was not even
good enough to respond smoothly to the surface of a cobbled street. At
the same time, the undamped back end pogoed under pedalling and required
very smooth pedalling action to make any real progress.
Apart from this it was noticeable that the two pedal axles were not quite
parallel with one another, making for an interesting squirming sensation
when pedalling. Some spokes in the rear wheel were loose, suggesting it
won't remain true for long.
The steering was OK. The brakes weren't terrible. The transmission was
dodgy, but did work. Although gear changes weren't at all positive it
was generally possible to select gears. It was physically possible to
ride this bike for a couple of miles across Edinburgh, including uphill.
Nothing broke, or showed obvious signs of being likely to.
But in the course of the same visit I did some minor adjustment on a
Halfords own brand dual boing bike, of a kind which I'd usually condemn
equally strongly, and that was by comparison a revelation. The Halfords
bike was also woefully heavy and had similar general design, but the
components were (although still poor) streets ahead on quality. The V
brakes had cast alloy arms; the transmission components were all Shimano
branded - bottom of the range Shimano, admittedly, but much better than
the no-name copies on the other bike; the cranks were alloy rather than
steel.
General conclusion? £100 bikes really are throwing money down a hole.
They are so much worse than bikes costing just a little more that they
cannot be considered value for money.
--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Just as defying the law of gravity through building aircraft requires
careful design and a lot of effort, so too does defying laws of
economics. It seems to be a deeply ingrained aspect of humanity to
forever strive to improve things, so unquestioning acceptance of a
free market system seems to me to be unnatural. ;; Charles Bryant
buy a £100 dual suspension mountain bike. I've seen these things often
enough and had to fix things on them, so my answer is always 'no'. But
today, visiting an relation in our beloved capital city, I was asked to
fix some things on yet another, and took the opportunity of riding it
from the bottom of Moooorrrningsaide up to the Bike Co-op and back (one
cannot visit Edinburgh without making the pilgrimage to the co-op, after
all).
The bike had been bought a couple of weeks previously, and had been
slightly misassembled. The frame was a particularly heavy variant on the
'Flying V' design, with a unified rear triangle pivoting immediately in
front of the bottom bracket. Front suspension was provided by a pair of
forks with about 35mm travel which felt like elastomer - it was more
damped than sprung. By contrast rear suspension was provided by a 'coil
over' unit in which that I could detect no evidence whatever of damping
action.
As far as I could see this was, in the words of the old Raleigh adverts,
an all-steel bicycle - the wheel rims were aluminium, but nothing else
was. The V brakes had arms stamped out of steel plate. The rear
derailleur was a pre-slant-parallelgram design, also stamped steel
plate, apparently a cheap and even nastier copy of the Shimano SIS
design. The rear dropouts were stamped out of comparatively thin steel
plate and would be very easy to bend. The whole thing easily weighed as
much as any two of my bikes.
Once I had the bike reasonably adjusted, as I say, I rode it. The action
of the shifters was light, if not at all positive. The rear derailleur
tended to upshift under load, presumably due to flex in the pivots, and
the one time I got out of the saddle to sprint this effect caused me to
sit down again extremely rapidly. Apart from shifting under load, the
rear derailleur was quite reluctant to shift up, presumably because of a
weak return spring.
Performance of the suspension was pretty much as predicted. First the
good: the limited travel of the front suspension coupled with the poor
performance of the front brake meant that there was not excessive
brake-dive. Then the bad... where to start? The suspension was not even
good enough to respond smoothly to the surface of a cobbled street. At
the same time, the undamped back end pogoed under pedalling and required
very smooth pedalling action to make any real progress.
Apart from this it was noticeable that the two pedal axles were not quite
parallel with one another, making for an interesting squirming sensation
when pedalling. Some spokes in the rear wheel were loose, suggesting it
won't remain true for long.
The steering was OK. The brakes weren't terrible. The transmission was
dodgy, but did work. Although gear changes weren't at all positive it
was generally possible to select gears. It was physically possible to
ride this bike for a couple of miles across Edinburgh, including uphill.
Nothing broke, or showed obvious signs of being likely to.
But in the course of the same visit I did some minor adjustment on a
Halfords own brand dual boing bike, of a kind which I'd usually condemn
equally strongly, and that was by comparison a revelation. The Halfords
bike was also woefully heavy and had similar general design, but the
components were (although still poor) streets ahead on quality. The V
brakes had cast alloy arms; the transmission components were all Shimano
branded - bottom of the range Shimano, admittedly, but much better than
the no-name copies on the other bike; the cranks were alloy rather than
steel.
General conclusion? £100 bikes really are throwing money down a hole.
They are so much worse than bikes costing just a little more that they
cannot be considered value for money.
--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Just as defying the law of gravity through building aircraft requires
careful design and a lot of effort, so too does defying laws of
economics. It seems to be a deeply ingrained aspect of humanity to
forever strive to improve things, so unquestioning acceptance of a
free market system seems to me to be unnatural. ;; Charles Bryant
