Best and Worst bikes you've ever ridden

[JustKev]

Best - DBR Axis Team with Accutrax. My race bike BITD and loved it. Sorely missed.

Worst - Cannondale Delta V****. first bad expereince of full suspension!

Fastest was a Merlin Extralite (?) that i built for a client with Zipp 440's, dura ace and full Ti/carbon kit in timetrial set-up. Awesome!!!

 

[grahame]

A possible heresy coming up here. (Remember all of these threads are based on personal perception)

Best MTB? (compared to other stuff around at the time) my first 1992 Breezer. Lovely, direct, fast accelleration and apparently telepathic handling.

Most disappointing MTB would go to the 1993 Kona Kilauea with Marzocchi XC500 forks. It just didn't "fit" or feel "right" under me. It had to go.

Best road bike? I still absolutely adore riding the Sunn team Ti I bought off Sylvain. Lovely, fast, and direct, but still comfy.

Most disappointing road bike? Hmm, probably the Colnago (something or other - steel) that I had on loan/test for Cycling Plus in the mid-nineties. Before I got it, I was so looking forward to riding it, but it just wasn't significantly different from my 531 tubed Williams (shop in Cheltenham) own-brand frame. I rode it about 6 times then sent it back with a review that basically said "OK frame, horrible paint job, get a custom built UK frame and some coaching instead" but in about 750 words.

 

[cce]

Worst: GT Pantera

horribly stiff, nasty geometry, flared headtube from a heavy landing meant the only headset i could get to fit was a knackered Kona control centre. The manitou mach 5SX's had seized adjusters. they did at least have speed springs though and i secretly hanker for another pair.

it got stolen from outside my local library. i only really missed it for its forks and its M900 brake levers. it was 3 years before i learned to love again...

Best

My current kona. she's far from perfect, but riding it makes me forget that.

 

[Mr X]

Best bike, maybe a Wheeler 9980 made out of Easton Varilite tubing with Judy FSX. Was not expensive, nor especially sexy. Stupid me I sold it some months later with a good profit for a titanium bike that never offered me the same sensations.

:x Worst bike was a 7780 € bike called Tomac Revolver. A titanium full-suspended, full XTR with CrossMax... so on paper a "pretty good" bike.

It came to be handling like a truck, suspension whatever plushy or stiff in settings were polluted by the side flexion of the frame. Far too much flexibility, inconvenient ride, cracking noises, brake rubbing noise when climbing, vague directionnal feeling, heavy cornering. And you would spend the price of a good second hand car for this sh## ?

Glad I was testing it for a magazine and wasn't the (un)happy owner... :evil:

Best Road Bike, my current Look 585, I wanted to sell it, bought in the meantime a Look 595, broke two frames and, pretty upset, finally dug it back from the carbon box, rebuilt it with full Dura-Ace... to find out that I feel lot better on it.

Worst Road bike, definetelly my Cannondale R3000 Si Caad 5... how do you call in English these pneumatic hammers which are used by the road-workers ? Felt the same thing, to the point that I had a blood circulation problem at the upper-leg part due to its shaky attitude. Kept it 6 weeks.

 

[messiah]

One of the best and worst bikes I've owned are one and the same.

My current 1995 Kona Explosif - at the moment I love it Singlespeed with rigid forks (as in this months BOTM).

But when I retired it in 1998 I could not have hated it more. It became a ditch magnet, every time you glanced off the trail that was were you would go.The frame seemed to have a life of it's own and flexed and dived about launching you every where except where you wanted to go. I was so concerned that I checked all the frame joins because I honestly thought it must have broken somewhere. Luckily my Intense Uzzi SL frame arrived and I shoved the Explosif in the loft in disgust until 2002.

When I rebuilt the Explosif in 2002 I did not expect good things - but i was very surprised. The Manitou Mach 5 SX forks (with speedsprings) were completely trollied which was probably what was wrong with the bike (the damper cartidge was in bits and the stantions were ruined - how I failed to notice this when i put them away is unbelievable). I was also running riser bars and some very bad tyres which I now think were also partly to blame for the poor ride.

With rigid forks, decent tyres and flat bars on the Explosif frame we are very much back in love.

Best bike I have ever ridden though is a Trek 9900 Pro Issue Nude Carbon from about 1993/4. Awesome - but a little weak *cough*

I think poor components can ruin the ride of a nice bike.

 

[ededwards]

Tricky one as some of my current bikes could be up there for Best (don't think any for Worst) but don't get a mention as they don't have history with me yet.

Best MTB - Specialized Stumpjumper Team because it was a huge improvement on my original rides. Sold it to get a Klein, bought it back, cold heartedly abandoned it in Pakistan (there will be some guy in Pindi in shalwar kameez and chapals positively flying along!).

Worst MTB - Roberts (pre DOGS BOLX) but only because it was far too small for me.

Best road bike - Holdsworth Avanti because it was my first proper bike, sold it, bought it back, was squashed by a bus on the Elephant and castle roundabout at 8.30 a.m., had a new seat tube and respray and the sold it for buttons on eBay (why oh why?)

Worst road bike - has to be a beautiful, mid blue, Campag equipped Mercian, classic looking. However if you look up the definition of the wod 'noodly' you'll see "The forks on Ed's Mercian" listed. They were so flexible that if you gripped the forks between your knees you could move the bars at least 6 inches in either direction. This lead to my scariest moment on a bike, a violent speed wobble with a cross wind at 37mph on a hill with almost a mile to go. Suffice it to say I never rode it again (and to this day have a great fear of downhills - I didn't do ANY of the descents last summer in the Pyrennes).

Honourable Worst road bike mentions have to go to:
- On One Il Pompino (although I did love it despite it's faults). Came with fork steerer already cut (so no spacers possible, on an XL! This gave a good 7 inches saddle to bar drop and I toured Wales like this) and wheels that were effectively unbuilt (part way through the tour all spokes on the rear wheel loosened so that the nipples were rattling around. Says something for the strength of the rim that the wheel stayed true enough to finish the day and rebuild overnight with a spoke key and some fiendish curses).

- Cotic Roadrat, bought and sold without riding more than 100m. Don't believe the reviews, Emporer's New Clothes for me.

 

[dbmtb]

Best bike - Leaving emotions out of it, it has to be my current modern road bike. Kuota Kharma with Campag Record, Fulcrum 3 wheels and Mavic SSC brakes. Nothing else I own comes close - even my mid-90s steel De Rosa,which is an AWESOME ride that I bought to replace the bike below.

Worst bike - Lemond (Trek) Zurich Reynolds 853. Too unforgiving despite the OCLV carbon fork. Owned it for a year and was never happy with it.

If I have to choose an MTB, then for best bike I can't decide between my mod bike (Pace 303/RC41XCAM,Hope everything) or my early-mid 90s Dave Yates (Brit/Euro everything)

Worst "quality" bike was a Raleigh Summit. It was just bad.

 

[kingroon]

Some great stories on here

Best Bike:
'95 Orange C16R; had it dialled in perfect.. LX, F7 forks, CrossMax Mk1s, Flite.. Couldn't improve on the setup I had, it just rode perfect for me.. Then it got nabbed.. :evil:

Worst Bike:
'90 Cannondale SM1000 - My short lived experience with aluminium, never again. Couldn't feel what the bike was doing, tried several different builds on it, tinkering here and there but never really liked it.. :roll:

I wish I could say I'd ridden the bikes in my signature enough to formulate Best or Worst there.. Soon tho

 

[cannondale king]

worst was an old raligh i got when i was 12 had it killed it the got given my dads one the same but bigger rode like crap no handling just shocking

and my best and wih to keep forever the orange pretiage im now working on finish it almost today and been riding tonight it feels so good it may be slightly rose tinted glasses as yet but im loving it its so good

 

[Repack Rider]

Worst road bike, my Peugeot PX-10. Best road bike (before I replaced it a couple of years ago with a carbon-fibre LeMond), my 1971 Campy Nuovo Record equipped Colnago, which lasted me until 2005 before the frame broke.

I've never had a bad mountain bike, and I have had a lot of nice ones, but I rode the Alenax attempt at a mountain bike, and it was the worst bike of any kind ever built by anyone for any purpose. It marks the high-water point of bad bikes. You could get an engineering class at Oxford to try to design a worse bike, and they wouldn't be able to do it. No amount of money spent on bad design could come up with a worse bike.

Did I mention that it sucked?