The decline of European manufacturing and the rise of the BSO

[retrobate]

I apologise in advance for drifting slightly off topic but I would like to highlight the premium near BSO's.

A couple of years ago I agreed to service a bike for one of my sisters friends. It was a Pashley PRINCESS Sovereign or whatever the proceeding model was. I genuinely got angry working on that POS that it was being sold as a premium product.

It's £200 worth (retail) of bits & gas pipe being sold for £995. Robbing bastards!

 

[bikeworkshop]

I apologise in advance for drifting slightly off topic but I would like to highlight the premium near BSO's.

A couple of years ago I agreed to service a bike for one of my sisters friends. It was a Pashley PRINCESS Sovereign or whatever the proceeding model was. I genuinely got angry working on that POS that it was being sold as a premium product.

It's £200 worth (retail) of bits & gas pipe being sold for £995. Robbing bastards!

This is on topic for sure.

I don't imagine the pashley staff are creaming it off and living the high life.

A grand is the price of
a bit above a bso
If it's made in the uk...
Because " hey, we're worth it"

 

[retrobate]

This is on topic for sure.

I don't imagine the pashley staff are creaming it off and living the high life.

A grand is the price of
a bit above a bso
If it's made in the uk...
Because " hey, we're worth it"

If she had spent £300 at Halfords she would have got a better bike (that would have been so poorly assembled it would have tried to kill her the first time she tried to ride it).
I cant see how that the badly designed, badly built frame can cost £700 to be batch built in the UK.

 

[ajm]

For us, BITD the single most obvious BSO indicator was the rear derailleur hanger. BSOs inevitably had horizontal drop-outs and used a (usually Tourney) derailleur with the hanger built in; "good" bikes had a vertical dropout and derailleur hanger was part of the frame.

 

[bikeworkshop]

If she had spent £300 at Halfords she would have got a better bike (that would have been so poorly assembled it would have tried to kill her the first time she tried to ride it).
I cant see how that the badly designed, badly built frame can cost £700 to be batch built in the UK.

I was offered aluminium mtb frames from China at 3 dollars apiece.
Beat that!

 

[greencat]

BSOs have existed for a while. Emmelle seemed to have a never ending supply of them. Earlier than that my first proper grown up bike as a teen was a Prophete Sprint. Right POS, but it had some miles put on it because bikes were the family's only form of transport and we lived in the sticks. It was 5 miles to the nearest small town.

 

[bikeworkshop]

For us, BITD the single most obvious BSO indicator was the rear derailleur hanger. BSOs inevitably had horizontal drop-outs and used a (usually Tourney) derailleur with the hanger built in; "good" bikes had a vertical dropout and derailleur hanger was part of the frame.

The sloping rear dropout means frame alignment isn't important.
This would be cheap steel frames (often mig welded) assembled as quickly as possible.
The Mustang fit this bill, but came with bearings that lasted.

Aluminium manufacturing tolerances are so much higher that its rare not to see vertical dropouts

although the true BSO is steel - and simply became oversized steel when aluminium tubing became prevalent

 

[legrandefromage]

Raleigh lizard, any Emmelle (other than the Ross & Araya rebadged ones!), Townsend, Universal, these all released shonky bikes in the late 80s into the 1990's

Pressed dropouts, sidepull brakes, chrome rims, rustless spokes.

Mostly shimano TY22 parts, thumbies, rear mechs etc but very often the last gasp of Sachs Huret budget turds found on the 10 speed racers

My own first true mtb was 1986, a Greyhound City 5.

5 speeds, count them, 5, built with Meteorlite bmx tubing and...

Bullmoose bars!

Yay!!

Anyway, it was sold as an 'ATB' to my parents after the £5 roadbike with its loose bars had pitched me into a hedge one too many times.

So there you go, 600mm bars, 1x drivevtrain and I wasn't even tall enough to ride the damn thing

 

[Takingabreak]

I apologise in advance for drifting slightly off topic but I would like to highlight the premium near BSO's.

A couple of years ago I agreed to service a bike for one of my sisters friends. It was a Pashley PRINCESS Sovereign or whatever the proceeding model was. I genuinely got angry working on that POS that it was being sold as a premium product.

It's £200 worth (retail) of bits & gas pipe being sold for £995. Robbing bastards!

Somewhere buried at the back of the man cave I have a Pashley Parabike. Thankfully I didn’t buy it new snd pay full price, it really is cheap and nasty. Another example of overpriced almost BSO

 

[Woz]

First thing I notice is a mandatory spoke protector. Obviously.