Dear Halfords

[MartinYorkshire]

I've been looking at ebikes, and took a look in halfords, just really to see what they have, though no way id buy from them, mainly for the reasons above plus my own personal experience.

They have a voodoo zobop at their top full suss e bike, priced at £3000
But when you go through the spec, its all as low end as you can get. RS recon forks, retail at usually below £200, steel uncoated(ie prone to rust) stanchions. Which are a pretty thin 32mm, which to my mind is a bit thin for such a heavyweight bike.
Suntour chainset, again pretty much the bottom of the market, and as bottom the quality will be poor, so attention to quality and detail will also be low.

Next we have the brakes, an important factor on an mtb, again especially given the weight of the bike -54lbs and again it is the utter bottom of the shimano range, the altus which retail at a whopping £30 a set.
Drivetrain is low end sram nx., wheelset is formula hubs on no name rims.

All in all it is cheap spec across the board, and cheap kits doesnt last very long, and is prone to issues both build and mechanical.

But they have the audacity to ask £3k.
To my mind this is not a capable offroad full susser. Its going to start going wrong within a month, maybe two and just cost the customer money hand over fist.
Were you to remove the electrical parts of the bike and tout it as a full suss, it would be well below the £1000 mark, but still not up to its intended use.

The reviews on the Halfords site look fake to me. They read the same as the obviously fake reviews for random brand name crap chinese products on amazon.

No way that Voodoo is worth £3,000 of anyones money, or even close. Half, maybe.

 

[pileyk]

I am glad I picked up an old Apollo rigid 'mtb' recently for £20. I wanted to see how bad they were and my expectations were met. It was in excellent cond and worked ok after bit of adjustment to brakes/gears... but it was soulless to ride and felt dull and dead somehow. The shitty thumb shifter and hard grips were one thing but the brakes were spongy and felt awful...I noticed the caliper arms flexed and were made from the thinnest metal possible!

I mean you can spend £50-£60 on a quality brand old bike in VGC which after a little TLC will be enjoyable to use and ride.. so even the £20 I spent felt a waste of money tbh. I fully agree with the OP from 2015... Halfords are legally polutting the environment and our streets by promoting such dross.

 

[legrandefromage]

Re-read the whole thread and unfortunately not much has changed

The Carrera brand has gone a wee bit upmarket but there are still so many cheap and nasty bikes being sold - or at least they were being sold until container prices went through the roof. Add to that the cost of shipping, covid, general mish mash of madness, maybe things will iron themselves out

...or we'll be flooded with 1000's of shitecycles again when it all calms down

 

[hookooekoo]

Halfords just sell whatever generates the most revenue. Obviously there's a market for BSOs, probably mostly from people who have only ever ridden a gas pipe BSO, and don't appreciate how much nicer a decent bike is, or people who just can't afford a better bike.

Last time I was in Halfords, I stopped for a few moments to survey the E-Scooters. Amongst all the information about the different models, I didn't see a single word of advice stating that these E-Scooters are still illegal to use in public places.* I guess that shifting stock at a healthy mark up and adding to the bottom line is all that really matters to them.

They also had some Pendleton branded E-Bikes. I tried lifting a few of them, and they're very, very heavy, although I don't think E-Bike heavyness is unique to Halfords. From what I've gathered, lifting pretty much any E-MTB onto a car bike rack is likely to result in a hernia.

* As far as I'm aware, even in the official E-Scooter trial cities, you're only allowed to use the official trial scooters, and all private scooters are still illegal. And judging by the private scooters I've already seen being illegally used, I predict a bit of E-Scooter carnage if they are eventually fully approved.