How to get a cheap or free bicycle. Please add your tips!

Cool_Mint

I had a good look through the transport section but there doesn't seem to be a dedicated thread for cheap bikes so I thought I'd start one here.

You might be broke or maybe you just don't want to spend £400+ because you're coming back to cycling for the first time since you were a kid or maybe you just need a cheap winter hack bike you don't have to worry about getting stolen or damaged; there are a lot of people who just need a cheap set of wheels.

The posh option..



If you want the easiest, quickest option and you have £200 in your pocket then take a look around local bike shops for Raleigh bikes, for a long time Raleigh have been in the doldrums (Raleigh doesnt' even exist anymore except as a brand name used by Derby International) but they have been getting their act together over the last couple of years and now have some fairly good quality bikes in their low-budget range so you can buy a reliable hybrid or town bike for as little as £175.

For a lot of people that's still too much money so how about a new bike for £50?

A £50 cheapie..


Asda-Walmart are selling "mountain bike style" British Eagles as a loss-leader product; they are very basic and simple, strictly no-frills bikes but they do qualify as real bikes that you can ride to work and around town or take on canal paths.

These bikes are rather heavy, clunky and uncomfortable but good enough for light use. Tesco are selling some cheap bikes too but I haven't seen them yet so I can't testify as to whether they are up to standarde or not. Tesco are usually pretty reliable though.

What's the catch? Well, you'll need a few tools because they are sold boxed, "some assembly required". No problem if you're handy with a set of spanners but newbies may find it a frustrating task.

Be very wary of any new bike sold for under £100, Asda's British Eagles are an exception to the rule but you'll feel very ripped-off if you buy one of those £65 "mountain bikes" sold by a certain well known high-street sports store. Shiny paint and stickers often disguise a multitude of sins so watch out for bad bikes hidden under pretty paintwork.

But I'm skint...

Get it FREE! Ask around, a lot of people have an old bike cluttering up their shed that just needs a good clean and a squirt of oil. Use Freecycle or Freegle's message boards to ask for free parts and bits; you may not get a perfect and complete bicycle in one go but if a bike is missing a saddle or a front wheel just post another request for the parts you need.

Free or nearly-free 1970's/1980's racers and mountain bikes are common and if you don't mind the SiS gears (the ones they used before modern click-shifters) they can be pretty good.







There are a few good specialist secondhand bike shops around where you can just walk in, hand over £50 and walk out with a perfectly reliable - if slightly rusty - bike but for some reason the bigger more upmarket bike shops tend to ask for silly prices for old bikes, they're not a rip-off but they're not good value.

Secondhand bikes are a bit of a minefield especially when they have fancy components like suspensions and hydraulic disc brakes, if you can find one that IS in good condition then that's great but if you just don't know what you're looking at it's usually safer to limit your search parameters to simpler bikes - that way there is less to go wrong.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Never, ever, ever buy a cheap £100-ish bike from a supermarket. They aren't fit for purpose, and are a waste of money.

Cool_Mint

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Never, ever, ever buy a cheap £100-ish bike from a supermarket. They aren't fit for purpose, and are a waste of money.

Ah, but there are exceptions. Personally I wouldn't buy a bicycle from a supermarket because I like quality bikes but at least one or two of the big stores are getting their act together and stocking bikes that are just about okay. I'm not saying they are good but Asda's British Eagle bikes are sold at a loss and they're not all that bad.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Yeah, right:

http://road.cc/content/news/5934-asda-pulls-ad-cheap-bike-after-front-forks-fiasco

Cheap supermarket bikes won't get more people cycling. They're crap, heavy unreliable lumps of iron that'll spend their days rusting in the shed. £300 is the minimum spend for a basic bike, and even that's scraping the barrel.

thelawnet

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Yeah, right:

http://road.cc/content/news/5934-asda-pulls-ad-cheap-bike-after-front-forks-fiasco

Cheap supermarket bikes won't get more people cycling. They're crap, heavy unreliable lumps of iron that'll spend their days rusting in the shed. £300 is the minimum spend for a basic bike, and even that's scraping the barrel.

Nonsense. £300 is certainly not scraping the barrel. You can get an adequate bike for £100, like this one: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/rockrider-5-0-men-s-2010-138413764/

Something like this is good too, with mudguards, rack and dynamo lighting: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/btwin-5-daily-111355364

A cheap bike like these can turn a 20-minute walk to the shops/train station into a 5 minute cycle ride and serve their purpose perfectly well.

If you want to do 100 mile time trials they won't suit, but then most people don't and won't.

The sort of bike that most bike shops sell in the £300 range you are talking about is ill-suited to most people's needs too.

They'd probably try and sell something like this:

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/trek/72-fx-2009-hybrid-bike-ec016505

What they should be selling is more like this:

http://www.izibike.nl/product/3661/Giant-Centro_CS_5_2010

But that's not going to happen as long as bikes are marketed in this country as some sort of specialist sport rather than a practical means of transport.

Billy-no-Money

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Yeah, right:

http://road.cc/content/news/5934-asda-pulls-ad-cheap-bike-after-front-forks-fiasco

Cheap supermarket bikes won't get more people cycling. They're crap, heavy unreliable lumps of iron that'll spend their days rusting in the shed. £300 is the minimum spend for a basic bike, and even that's scraping the barrel.

OK, so my bike's not a supermarket bike, but it cost £250 brand new. I've done 4500 miles on it in the past 18 months commuting to work.
Utterly reliable, routine maintenance only - chain, cassette, brake pads. The only 'upgrade' it needed was to replace a gripshift with a trigger - and that cost the grand total of £14. People need to know what to look for, £250 to £300 is where the breakpoint is between overpriced 'crap' bikes and value 'good' bikes IMHO.

Cool_Mint

Just for balance here's a link to BBC Watchdog's piece on flatpack bicycles (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnMlxWL8ttQ

I've ridden a British Eagle and while it wasn't the most pleasant experience I've ever had on two wheels it felt stable enough, I'd certainly be worried about the buckled wheels and loose crank demonstrated on Watchdog though.

My own bikes are a Thorn Club Tour, a Raleigh Chiltern and a Vince Electra.