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What's the worst bicycle you ever owned?

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What's the worst bicycle you ever owned?

Old 09-13-20, 02:13 PM
  #76  
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The worst bike I owned was an Atala Competizione. I think it was from around 1975. I bought it used in about 1982. The handling was squirrely and unpredictable. I hit a pothole, and it knocked my hands off the bars. Suddenly my elbows were on the bars. I couldn't control the bike, and the wheel turned 90º. I flipped over the bike and landed on my back. It hurts as much as it sounds like. The experience was so harrowing that I sold the bike, and I even got a good price for it.
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Old 09-13-20, 03:11 PM
  #77  
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A Principia Al and a first generation Specialized E5 Al. Both of them absolutely beat me to death and fatigued me prematurely. Any ride over 2 to 3 hours was a torture fest that made me want to return to running.
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Old 09-13-20, 06:20 PM
  #78  
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A Soviet-era Ural in early 70s. It was single speed, made out of plumbing pipes it seemed and weighted about the same as me. I was the happiest boy riding it.
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Old 09-13-20, 06:22 PM
  #79  
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gmc denali
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Old 09-13-20, 09:57 PM
  #80  
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Cannondale Carbon Synapse....I had a bad accident and could no longer get comfortable on my Supersix no matter what I did....I loved the Supersix, fit me perfectly, so sadly, I made the decision I needed to sell it.
I test road a synapse for 50 miles and while it was not as comfortable as the supersix was for me, I figured I would find the right setup. Nope never did.....it got worse every ride and after every adjustment. And don't start with the creaking bottom bracket.
I only kept it for 5 months and moved to the Trek Emonda ALR, which I found outstanding and a far better bike for me.
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Old 09-14-20, 05:39 AM
  #81  
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The worst bike I ever owned was my high school ten speed, a beautiful root beer brown Schwinn Varsity. I didn't realize how bad the bike was until I did a 40 mile ride one summer. It damn near killed me , my legs were toast. I gave it to a friend who wanted to start riding . I discovered racing bikes and never looked back! I was in my early twenties and after riding that heavy hunk of boat anchor, I was really fast!!!
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Old 09-14-20, 08:13 AM
  #82  
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Originally Posted by grizzly907la
The worst bike I ever rode was a 1989 Huffy that I bought at Target. I rode it for a short amount of time, and had to get rid of it because the frame cracked. Just say no to Huffy!
+ 1



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Old 09-14-20, 08:46 AM
  #83  
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1989(?) Raleigh Technium Pre

For those unfamiliar, aluminum main frame tubes glued to steel lugs with a steel fork and chainstays/seatstays.

Just a sluggish, dead ride for me, and while I like internal cable routing it was accomplished by just running full length housing inside of the top tube. It would bounce around and produce this really annoying pinging sound.

Kind of a shame, since I really liked how it looked, handlebar rotation excluded:
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Old 09-14-20, 08:48 AM
  #84  
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Originally Posted by BoSoxYacht


The frame was nice, but SRAM Red components are trash.
There might be a reason it is called the "Poor man's Shimano"
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Old 09-14-20, 09:02 AM
  #85  
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Originally Posted by RPK79
Huffy Granite. Not sure it even qualified as a bicycle.
Sounds heavy. What marketing genius thought "Granite" would be a good name for a bike?
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Old 09-14-20, 09:15 AM
  #86  
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Lets keep politics out of this

Originally Posted by noodle soup
Lets keep politics out of it. I didn't get that bike from Target...I got something far worse. I'm sure the bike that Trump's holding is a purpose built bike.
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Old 09-14-20, 07:35 PM
  #87  
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Originally Posted by grizzly907la
The worst bike I ever rode was a 1989 Huffy that I bought at Target. I rode it for a short amount of time, and had to get rid of it because the frame cracked. Just say no to Huffy!

you do realize that Ben Serotta built “Huffy’s for 7-11?. A rose by any other name.
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Old 09-14-20, 07:38 PM
  #88  
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Also,fwiw, Trump took over title sponsorship of the premier us cycling race at the time from Du pont in the late 80’s
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Old 09-14-20, 07:47 PM
  #89  
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It wasn’t the worst bike by any objective measure, but the bike I hated the most was a Surly Cross Check. I got it originally for my wife, who wanted nothing to do with it and I took it over as a commuter. I have never ridden anything so uncomfortable. Must have been the Gatorskins. :þ
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Old 09-14-20, 07:50 PM
  #90  
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Originally Posted by Kabuki12
The worst bike I ever owned was my high school ten speed, a beautiful root beer brown Schwinn Varsity. I didn't realize how bad the bike was until I did a 40 mile ride one summer. It damn near killed me , my legs were toast. I gave it to a friend who wanted to start riding . I discovered racing bikes and never looked back! I was in my early twenties and after riding that heavy hunk of boat anchor, I was really fast!!!

Had the same bike in the same color. Weighed 41 pounds. Having owned a number of pro tour level and custom bikes, including Willier, Giant, Calfee, Bianchi, Paramount, Merlin, (some of which well into 5 figures) I’d argue my $91 brown Varsity ( I couldn’t afford the $ 109 Continental) was my best bike ever.

The Varsity introduced me to A world of road bikes and showed there was something more than paperboy bikes and stingrays.

So its incredibly easy to take potshots at a 41 pound electro weld bike. It was still a road bike and launched a lifelong obsession for many of us of a certain age.
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Old 09-14-20, 08:29 PM
  #91  
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Originally Posted by banerjek
Probably this one. But I thought it was awesome at the time
Did you get beat up a lot?
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Old 09-14-20, 10:03 PM
  #92  
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Originally Posted by banerjek
Probably this one. But I thought it was awesome at the time
I had something similar circa '74, 4 yr. old me cried my eyes out until I ran out of tears. The fenders just about killed me, I thought it was a girls bike. Fast forward a couple years later, I begged for one of those motorcycle styled bikes. The ones with a loaf of bread banana seat and grip that made revving noises like dirt bike when you twisted it, I never got it. That was until I did, by that time my taste had changed and BMX was the latest fad. OMG was I laughed at, my parents probably saw it on clearance and thought "hey, isn't that the bike Lester wanted?". My cousin saved me by making it look like a BMX bike LOL.

I just found this gem....the bike looked like these

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Old 09-14-20, 10:38 PM
  #93  
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In one way or another, I've loved every bike I've ever owned, from my first (Schwinn Sting Ray, circa 1968) to the high end carbon I ride now.
Some of them would not be properly described as lovable - for example, the Schwinn Continental was kind of like a 10 speed truck (at least it wasn't a Varsity!), but I loved that one too.
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Old 09-15-20, 01:25 AM
  #94  
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I moved to a hilly area before high school, and my dad gave me his department store 10 speed with stem shifters, flat pedals, and those dual brake levers that allowed you a tiny amount of braking force from the tops. It might have been okay when we lived in a flat area, but the 400ft climb home was a terrible experience. The bike was super flexy, heavy, and when I was climbing out of the saddle, if I wasn't careful I'd hit my knee on the shifter, causing the bike to change gears and me to slip off and scrape my lower leg on the front chain ring. I lasted about a month with it before I replaced it with an old but decent Reynolds 531 Raleigh from the classifieds, with downtube shifters and toe clips, and I actually started enjoying climbing and used it for the rest of high school.
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Old 09-15-20, 02:36 AM
  #95  
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Chinese "mountain" bike I bought in Kimbe, Papua New Guinea for the local equivalent of $50. For it to sell for $50 there meant it was seriously crappy, PNG, despite being a third world country is very expensive, and gets even more expensive further from big cities. I don't think there was anything quality about it. The pedals lasted 3 days, the wheel bearings went within a week, the frame was made from recycled dog food cans, it was that flimsy. Serious waste of money.
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Old 09-15-20, 04:57 AM
  #96  
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Originally Posted by merlinextraligh
Had the same bike in the same color. Weighed 41 pounds. Having owned a number of pro tour level and custom bikes, including Willier, Giant, Calfee, Bianchi, Paramount, Merlin, (some of which well into 5 figures) I’d argue my $91 brown Varsity ( I couldn’t afford the $ 109 Continental) was my best bike ever.

The Varsity introduced me to A world of road bikes and showed there was something more than paperboy bikes and stingrays.

So its incredibly easy to take potshots at a 41 pound electro weld bike. It was still a road bike and launched a lifelong obsession for many of us of a certain age.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! No doubt they had a following , but they are boat anchors to me. I had gone from putting my basketball on the rack and pedaling to the BB court to shoot hoops to cycling , actually going places and that thing was way too heavy. When I got my first light weight bike I was in heaven. Even the super heavy LeTour was 31 lbs and lighter than the Varsity. I think the only thing Schwinn offered in those days that came close to my 21lb rocket was a Paramount. Joe
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Old 09-15-20, 06:35 AM
  #97  
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^ No doubt the Varsity was absurdly heavy. The electro forged frame approach was destined to build boat anchors.

But I think you missed my point; the Varsity was affordable ( a few months of paperboy earnings) readily available, and pretty much bulletproof.

When the Varsity was introduced, there was virtually no supply of adult road bikes in the U.S. The Varsity literally introduced millions of Americans to adult road cycling. By 1972 and the Bike Boom, Schwinn was still selling 30 percent of all ten speeds in the country.

So while the Varsity, had huge problems, most notably its weight, its the most significant bike in the history of American cycling.
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Old 09-15-20, 06:56 AM
  #98  
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Yea, perhaps, maybe you missed my point as well. The bike did nothing wrong, it was bullet proof and got me where I needed to go at the time. When I started cycling( actually going places rather than school and back) it was not good. For me, cycling started about the time I got a light weight. It is relative in that we all have different tastes and the Varsity holds no special place in my cycling memory any more than my little red wagon. The most joy I got out of the bike was the look on the guy's face when I gave it to him. He put butterfly handlebars on it and rode it everywhere! He was a big guy and he LOVED that bike even years later , he was still riding it. At the time I owned the Varsity I had friends that owned Raleigh's and one friend that had a Stella ( I have it now) and those were the bikes I was drawn to. We were poor and I worked summers so I could afford the Schwinn used at $25 to get to high school and back, we had no car. It was way better than my huffy sting ray type bike.
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Old 09-15-20, 07:14 AM
  #99  
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Originally Posted by JonnyV
2009ish Fuji SL1. I've had several Fuji road bikes but that SL1 was the only one I hated. It was a hair too big and had this awesome front end wobble at 30mph, every descent sucked.
I have that very bike and haven't noticed any sort of wobble. Maybe it was something specific to your bike... or maybe it's because I rarely go much faster 30mph
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Old 09-15-20, 07:18 AM
  #100  
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I replaced my Varsity with a Bianchi as soon as imported bikes started to become available, and I could afford to, because a lot of things sucked about the Varsity.

However, without the Varsity basically creating the market for adult bikes in the U.S., I may never have been exposed to road bikes, and the Bike Boom which brought lightweight imports that replaced the Varsity may have never occurred.

So the electro forged 41 pound boat anchor with Ashtabula crank, and steel rims, ends up being the ”best” bike for me personally, and arguably for all of us, because we wouldn’t be here without it.
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