Best and Worst bikes you've ever ridden

[andrewl]

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.

My brother was given an Alenax transbar last year and kept it for all of 30 minutes, if I'd ridden it i would have said it was the worst bike too, however I never did.

I'm probably going to get flamed here but the worst mtb bike I've ridden is my old Klein Attitude. Yes its fast on smooth stuff but its really ordinary (read crap) on any rougher stuff and the MC1 bars are on a bad angle for me. It looks nice though as thats what really counts....

Best MTB would be without doubt my 04 Turner 5 Spot. It just takes everything in its stride and makes you (me) feel a million dollars without fail. If i was only allowed one bike this would be it.

 

[Simon]

Best MTB:

To be honest it's a bit of a toss-up here. I loved my Fisher Procaliber, but I'm assessing it through rose-tinted retro specs, so it may not actually be that good. Categorically better was the Merlin XLM that EdEdwards now has - certainly stiff and racy, but still compliant enough and it'd put a whacking great smile on my face every time I rode it.

The outlier in this is my Kona Hot that I brought from Bez. It's an absolute loon of a machine and probably has the best ride of anything I've ever owned, but even at 11 stone it's scarily flexible. Hence lovely, but I'm a little wary of it.

Worst MTB:

I started thinking about this, and there's no contest. It has to be my brother-in-law's GT RTS. How anyone could have brought one back in the day I just don't know, it sucks up so much energy compared to a hardtail, flexes in all the wrong places and yet still manages to knock your teeth out coming down rocky descents.

Best Road Bike:

Would have been my Merckx Corsa Extra, but I'm about 100 miles into running-in an MX Leader I brought from a guy in Berlin and I think it's just going to pip it at the post. I can't understand why anyone would want anything else, even if the MX does weigh a ton.

Worst Road Bike:

My Bob Jackson 753 Anniversary. I never took a tape measure to it, but it just handled badly - like someone attatched a bunch of lead weights when you were climbing, and it had horrible speed shimmy on descents.

 

[JustKev]

I'm probably going to get flamed here but the worst mtb bike I've ridden is my old Klein Attitude. Yes its fast on smooth stuff but its really ordinary (read crap) on any rougher stuff and the MC1 bars are on a bad angle for me. It looks nice though as thats what really counts....

certainly a brave comment Andrew - but not the first negative thing I've heard either about the original Attitude. I still want one though.....

 

[kaos]

Best bike most be my Yeti arc as3 or my monster fat! To very different bikes though.

The worst: Hmmmm... Cannondale super v or K2 dh animal.

 

[Joe]

WOW

 

[kanerdog1x1]

best is my cove stiffee, not one if these new ones, but my older single speed one, really short back end, begs to be ridden really light on the front, absolutely stunning on wet roots, my only gripe is that it has no disc mounts, so the brakes are dangerous at the best of times!

worst has to be the muddy fox dual shock thing that i test rode summer 97, had only one shock for both wheels, felt ok at the time, but now understand that it couldnt work, and was probably quite dangerous.

oh, and didnt like the 06 specialized enduro, wasnt what i thought it was going to be.

 

[Joe]

worst has to be the muddy fox dual shock thing that i test rode summer 97, had only one shock for both wheels, felt ok at the time, but now understand that it couldnt work, and was probably quite dangerous.

I want one of those Soooo badly!

 

[doctorstewie]

Resurrecting an ancient thread here but I reckon we've plenty of new experiences and indeed members... ( me included )

Best bike I have ever ridden? My Marin Rift Zone. I've had two and they were both brilliant. It's even better now that it has a Bomber on the front and it just seems to suit me: excellent steering, suspension that works without needing new bearings every year and reasonably light. It's my favourite any way. So afar ;-)

Worst? Hmm, bearing in mind I used to work at Halfords back in the day and made a point of test riding everything that came in, I dunno if I should include some of the monstrous heaps of turdery that we sold.
But I am going to.

Raleigh Activator 1. I know it's had a pounding by everyone and their dog, but there's a reason for that: it made a rigid Apollo look sophisticated. Steering so slack, coupled to really heavy steel wheels meant that you could barely steer or even stop the bastard. Once you got it going that is. That front wheel felt like you were being tugged along by a rogue gyroscope.
I built, serviced and repaired so many of these unholy creatures of the night that I fear I may never get over them. Oh and one of them tried to kill one of our punters when he stuck a QR wheel on one - the fork was so flexy the qr popped open depositing the poor sod on Chester road as the bare fork ends dug into the concrete ejecting him like a russian fighter pilot over Bosnia.
Blood, bone, lawsuit...( Raleigh had neglected to put a warning on the bike about QR wheels being unsuitable for the spaghetti that passed as a fork)

Normally I rather like Raleighs.

 

[FMJ]

I can't say I have a best. Kinda why I have a bunch of very different bikes. Some are better for a particular kind of riding. Have to say the worst bike I've ridden is an Ibis Szazbo.

 

[Muddy paw]

Nice to see an old thread revived .

My worst mtb was an old steel thing i bought early in 89 called Trail Mountain or somthing like that and it's best party trick was to disintergrate while riding which i purchased from a shop that no longer exist's thankfully .

My best mtb although not the best design in the world was my Muddy Fox Explorer my 1st ever decent MTB which i've missed loads since i sold it .

My latest purchase off Likeclockwork for my wife which is the 98 Kona Lavadome is a great ride but not really ridden it enough to class it as the best mtb that i've ridden .

Worst road bike was a 85 Falcon Grand Prix as it just felt heavy and no real feed back through the forks and bars plus after the warranty ran out the cross bar started to part company from the head tube and i doubt i'd cover more than 800 miles on that bike .

Best road bike was a 80's Dawes Scorpio which i must of covered around 16k on before i was knocked off it on the way to work just after august bank holiday in 1990 ..