Done the best, now the worst.
I'd probably have to say my old Heckler. Might be that I bought if off hora but I rode it twice and got rid. Just couldn't get used to it. Felt as if it was broken! Was fun going down though... maybe too much fun as the first descent I did on it I ended up binning it!
A close second would be my Pashley 26MHz. A beautiful looking thing but flexy as anything and rubbish build quality to be honest. Still looking for a NOS one in ivory to hang on the wall though!
Intense Tracer VP. Just couldn't get on with it. It's was a straight one, but no matter what I did to it it didn't feel right. And I came from a 5.5 before....
Mine has got to be my Patriot 66. Utter bag of poo.
I bought it to become my one bike after selling my Chameleon and Flair, both of which I loved. The Patriot just didn't do anything we'll. I hated it so much that it put me off riding for a bit! I was glad to see the back of that bike.
Other than that, I've liked the bikes that I've bought.
Nicolai Helius CC, maybe I just had a bad one, expected a lot but it just disappointed me a lot..
Toss up between a Giant Reign '10 and a Specialized Enduro '11. Hated them both. All setup correctly but the FS just felt awful. The 160mm just flattened everything and took the fun out of it. Couldn't pop off anything. They were only good on some DH tracks.
From a pain inflicting point of view.
The piranha bmx I owned back in the 80's still have the scars today from that blood producing bike, loved it at the time though 😉
Alpinestars Cro-mega DX.
Steel done wrong.
a 98 rockhopper comp, bought to replace my much loved 92 eldridge grade after it got stolen.
it just felt so ordinary compared to the marin.
6 months later, the marin was recovered and the spesh got sold sharpish.
I had a Klein Palamino for a year. Nice paintwork... And that was about the only positive thing about it.
Having owned one of the first Orange MsIsles back in '98 and ragged that for a good few years, when I decided to start riding more 'XC' in about 2004 I thought the 18" MsIsle I found on eBay would be a good move.
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Unfortunately I've never had such an instant dislike to a bike - way too stiff, bottom bracket too high - felt like I was perched on top of the bike almost to the point of being unsafe. Think I rode it twice before selling the frame and using the parts to build up my Dialled PA.
2011 Scott Spark 35, truely awful.
Probably my Grifter as a kid, although I still had a lot of fun on it. Weighed a ton, crap geometry, silly saddle and I hadn't yet learned how to avoid shin/calf pedal strikes so it was often a painful experience riding it :p
It's got to be a sunn cro mo converted to ss. It was my first ss and did a great job of being a cheap bike to experiment on.
However in the 2001 world champs at afan (penheed trail, spelt wrong) where I never actually crashed, it sustained:
Cracked drop out,
Blown forks
Bent bars
Droopy cranks
Bent seatpost
And a failing hub.
An exercise in buying stuff that was too cheap for my bulk. This was the bike that directed me towards quality components, and not cutting corners... So it served a purpose.
Intense 6.6
Couldn't get on with it.
Puch Pholcus
Looked like this:
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but orange, not green.
Honestly, Orange 5. For the cash, it was near impossible to keep it in a straight line up the hills, combined with the pedal bob, and the turdish single pivot characteristics....
Trek remedy - boring to ride.
Marin Bear Valley, 1991 I think, like this one:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=173513
Alu was fashionable so as far as I can tell they just made the steel tubes fatter so it looked like an alu bike, weighed a ton and horrible ride.
I was also sold a 19" by the shop with old skool roadie logic (biggest frame you can get on) and never actually got tall enough to want more than a 17
Never owned a bad bike as an adult... My old Carrera would be the worst, but only because it's about 20 years older than most of the others. My newer carrera would be the second worst as it was £300. But they've all been decent.
Suppose the worst one would be my C456, nice enough bike to ride but the build quality was piss poor and the warranty nonexistant. So nearly good.
Some horrible Giant hybrid (which admittedly kicked off my MTB career). Vile thing, put me off Giant for all time.
Specialized s works epic with a terralogic fork , I'd just started ridding and it felt very twitchy and nervous.
Specialized FSR thing. Utter ****ing dog of a bike.
Not owned but hired.
Norco Atomik. Just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Chumba XCL.
Really stiff, really well finished and bulletproof, but I felt like I was perched on a ladder when riding it!
I think it was a wee bit too big for me, but I really could not get it to work.
Nicolai Helius CC, maybe I just had a bad one, expected a lot but it just disappointed me a lot.
I'd put my CC as the best I've owned. It's so much better with an RP23 than the original DT Swiss shock.
For me it's the perfect all rounder.
My worst is the 09 Mongoose Teocali Super. The geometry felt completely wrong. I didn't like the weird moving bottom bracke, it was plain strange. I hated it.
Fat Chance Yo Eddy.
Gutted as it cost a fortune.. full m900 and syncros kit and just felt wrong..
Evil Sovereign, only rode it once, felt like it was trying to kill me.
Oops- actually I was wrong, it was my Camber. Really didn't like it, it wasn't a great xc bike or a particularily good allrounder, and it was a fairly bad trail bike- as hard work up the hills as a stumpy and ridiculously less good coming back down. Felt about 5 degrees too steep and probably about 50mm too short too.
Marin Rift Zone (around 2005)...goodish component spec but disliked immensely after first few rides so frame was sold on, components kept to be hung on a nice ti Litespeed frame
..was my 1st mtb bikes, a Claude Butler Ravana, probably wasn't a bad bike but the shop sold me a size too large.
Full suspension Giant, AC2 I think it was, utter bag of poop for me, hated everything about. Sluggish, felt heavy and the susoension felt toilet.
Fisher Ferrous - BB moved, super flexible, just a bit noodly and horrible. And it rusted and I think it has a crack
Probably my Grifter as a kid
Agreed - it can't have been much lighter than the QE2 can it...
I've normally never gotten this wrong, however I did have a couple of stand outs:
Bought a Rock Springs in 2009 and was told I needed the medium and not a large. The bike was actually amazing, it felt like a big BMX and turned Welsh rocky descents into an arcade game. I felt invincible on that bike. However, the top tube was too short and I kept hitting my knees on the bars on steep climbs, I just couldn't get the damn thing to hold any momentum going uphill.
So I gave the frame to my missus and bought a Wolf Ridge in a large. I took it away to the Peaks the very weekend I bought it and didn't get on with it at all...there was marginal extra length in the top tube and the frame was far too tall and lanky - the reverse of what I'd hoped for. I eventually fitted a set of Wotans to it and I wound up with a bike that felt nervous, twitchy and lacked feedback at the front end and was spitty and bob prone at the rear no matter how I tuned the shock.
It has a happy ending though. I swapped the oil in the fork to a slightly heavier weight, which gave more support and enabled me to run less air pressure, when accompanied with a soft compound front tyre made the bike feel grippy and communicative at last. The high top tube means that I have to run the bars higher than ideal as I'd end up smacking the shifters and brakes on the tube, but it's splitting hairs really.
Instead of sinking a pile of cash into an El Guapo, I swapped the shock for a Kashima CTD which has transformed it. It's no longer spitty or wallowy and the rear end feels absolutely nailed down despite me running lower pressures in the shock can. The Stinger chain guide has helped with the pedal bob too so the bike is pretty much how I'd originally envisaged. It's also become a very decent climber along the way too.
The moral of my story is to always borrow a test ride for the weekend before you buy and to never take the advice of a bike shop as gospel.
No such thing as a bad bike....they're all brilliant 😀
Raleigh Chopper, (from the 70's) completely unstable front end, two trips to the hospital for my efforts!
+1 on the Grifter for the weight.
My nickel plated Orange P7 was my first 'real' MTB with pace elastomer forks and it was only when I bought my Kona Kilauea that I realised the P7 was nothing really special.
Bought an Offroad Pro-Flex 750 in 92/93 ish... What a shocking bike that was.
Binned it after 6 months and bought a Cannondale M800 with Pace RC35's.
Original GT I drive. Weird feeling riding it and I was having to service the I Drive every 2 rides in the Lakes. Put me off full suspension for 5 years.
GT i-drive from around 2001, crazy bb thing and all the pivots just became a rattling mess after only a few long rides.... sold it easy though on ebay back then
Santa Cruz Blur, it was too tall and too short. The medium felt like a 19" seat tube mated to a 15" models top tube. It needed someone with longer legs than me I think.
had a 96 marin eldridge grade which was a beautiful bike and i loved it dearly...then some thieving git nicked it....having spent all my hard earned on the marin i had nothing left to show for it as the insurance refused to pay up....also at the time i was a hard up student so i had to start again from the bottom of the range....
i bought a gt palomar.....oh how i hated that bike....truly horrendous ride, handling and spec....i did what i could re upgrading parts that i could but it was still horrible....got rid of it about 9 months later...for a diamond back frame and forks....was a way much better bike to ride....since then all the other bikes i've had have been good...
also had a raleigh shaftivator....too embarrassed to say how bad it was... 😳
Dawes. Edge. Pro. Dull, dull, dull. Did everything sort of ok, but did nothing well. Horrible, boring, fugly thing.I was glad when it fell off my bike rack and died.
Falcon Sierra "ATB" from Halfords about 1986.
Heavy steel frame, wheel rims made of soft cheese, running gear made of cardboard. Had lots of fun on that. And lots of trips ot the bike shop for repairs.
Worst ownership experience though was a (Decathlon) Rockrider - lovely bike but woeful after-sales support, pretty critical for an "own brand" where you're tied to them for parts (e.g. mech hangers).
Easy. An off-the-peg Cannondale F600.
Beautiful paintjob/frame finishing, but nasty 80mm headshok and poor geometry. Rode horribly.
I've built pub-bikes-of-doom from spares in the shed that have ridden better.
Blur classic, felt nervous on it all the time, may well have been too small. Just wasn't for me.
Also my Cannondale M1000 felt like I'd done a few months in Shawshank after every ride, way too stiff for day rides no comfort at all.
Giant XTC SE3 from about 2003.
Was a definite Friday afternoon special, paintwork was crap, decals wonky, it weighed a ton and every corner the front end just washed out.
Truly crap
Probably my old Kona Cindercone from 1997.
Beautiful steel frame, but it was way too big for me at 18" and i stuck a set of RST forks on it so that didn't help.
Nothing wrong with the frame it was just too big and i couldn't ride it properly, sold it for a Zaskar Race 2001 model and never looked back!
My first MTB, a Raleigh 'Team MTB' which was built out of pig iron and looked like a badly made five bar gate. It was way too big for me, had plastic tyres with no grip, brakes made from particularly bendy bits of bakelite, and with what felt like an 82 degree head angle it chucked me over the bars repeatedly.
I had a ****ing brilliant time riding that bike, it was ace.
A second hand Raleigh Pioneer hybrid I bought for the winter commute - think components were made out of monkey metal
"mated to a 15" models top tube"
Fnarr fnarr!
Orange X2.
Pivots kept coming loose and suspension only worked when sat down (URT design).
Had fancy bits on it though, all migrated from my previous HT, so SXTi forks, Middleburn chaniset, hope ti hubs, USE seatpost, Flite saddle. Fortunately it got knicked from my garage, meaning I got a pay out and bought a stumpy FSR 😉
Bought the frame because I wanted to try out this new FS malarky.
Had a 2001 S-Works FSR that I really wanted to like, but it was just a bit rubbish!
An aluminium Ribble road bike in about 2000 .It felt awful was harsh and the geometry was all wrong
Titus El Guapo I bought last year, low BB handled like a barge, got a refund.
My wife has an original El Guapo and I liked that so much I thought I'd treat myself to a new one, but the geometry changes really changed the character of it and I just hated it from the first turn of the pedals.
Superfi - I remember those old Orange URT bikes. They were gash!
I never really got the whole URT thing and its good see that it's dead. There were quite a few offenders back in the day - Klein Mantra, Vodoo did some as well.
SX Trail, weird feeling rear suspension and no front end feel.
Klein Mantra. Absolutely terrifying to ride through whoops as when the suspension compressed the whole bike folded in half and the head angle went steep/shallow/steep/shallow with every whoop. Come to think of it all sweet spot bikes must have ridden like this.
Orange P7. Don't know wether it was built wrong or what but it rode like a bag of shite.
+1 on the grifter. Awful bike. Weighed a tonne and was several sizes too big for me. Was a delight to swap it for a Raleigh Arena!
Sunn revolt gt from late 90s had it till only a few years ago as a hack it just refused to die. Problem was it was constantly trying to kill me I've never fell of a bike as much as I fell off the thing, it was possessed I swear.
Having not been on my old Orange Clockwork for years I bought a 1999 GT XCR4000 to get back in to the sport and because I fancied a full suss.
It was turd, really bad. Suss didn't really do the job, it weighed more then a ship and the ride was terrible. Sold it to a mate in 2005 virtually unused.
I LOVED my SX trail. Funny old world eh 😉 Ellesworth ISIS wasn't a lot of fun. Hard to pinpoint what was wrong with it, just a bit lifeless. Put a longer fork on it in desperation and it did come to life then. As a flippy-floppy death fish thing.
Voodoo Wanga, my fault for buying a bike with a very short top tube. Not my fault all the paint fell off when you looked at it.
Airborne Lancaster(?) - the Ti hardtail. Something very not right with the geometry.
+1 on the Cannondale M1000. Brutally stiff and kinda 'dead' feeling. Probably only due to it being nicked am I still riding today.
I love my SX too....still going strong despite being old. Paints looking a little battered but its stood up well.
This, a Trek Y5. I did a Coast to Coast on it back in ooohhh let me see... 97/98 and I hit the first bump just out of St Bees and the thing didn't stop bobbing until I hit the other side of the Pennines..
PoC 😆
[img][url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7395/8728730564_d55683a4c1.jp g" target="_blank">
Something heavy and unmentionable from Halfords way back when I knew nothing about mountain bikes and only road it a few times to the shops, tow path etc. I realised what a PoC it really was on taking it actually off road.
Got into the stuff properly with a GT I-drive (I see mentioned a few times here). Oddly also from Halfords, but wasn't "their" brand and don't think they knew what they had. Amazing value for under £1k especially in components. Actually really liked that bike. Was a 2009 model so maybe much improved. I-drive BB is weird but worked. It did however need frequent servicing on the pivots. Didn't fall apart, just creaked at lot. Took a huge amount of abuse before I replaced it with bling.
never owned a bad bike but the worst bike i've ridden is undoubtedly a gary fisher hifi, the thing was unstable to the point of being dangerous to ride even down tame gradients.
Norco XXXX from 2007. Looked good, looked like it should be brilliant, it wasn't! Horrible thing!
Close second goes to my SX Trail. Built up with all sorts of tarty/expensive stuff, looked fantastic, and didn't really do anything that wrong. However it never felt like it was anything special, it was a bit boring to be honest. Annoyed me that I had just swapped my 2006 bighit for it, which was one of the best bikes I've owned.
Its a toss up between a Mk 1 Prince Albert - very heavy and weird geometry with a very high bb and a very low front end.
Or my 29er, bought into the 29er marketing bs, and got a nice Fisher G2 frame, build it with nice light parts, but it was slow handling and slow to ride - consistently slower than my equivalent 26er and harder work. Hated riding it so it went.
Be One Karma from CRC a few years ago, pants, heavy and the old euro style geometry. Terrible bike..
Few years ago I had an old Raleigh Montage in fluro green, ok to ride but every part of the drivetrain fell to bits after a few weeks use.
Surly Karate Monkey, although I am convinced it may be down to the way I've built it. Its currently in bits waiting for the time when I have the motivation to build it up differently. Never quite seemed to get on with it despite trying different specifications; it feels very heavy and dead on the climbs and I can't see why people get so evangelical about them.
Santa Cruz Nomad. It was marketed as an all round all mountain bike but it just wasn't. Turned me off Santa Cruz.
Gary Fisher Joshua F3 - orrible - useless URT design.
Enduro 2008 I so wanted the fork to work. I got refund in the end.
Wow can't believe I opened this thread to see such brands as Intense, Santa Cruz and Orange being mentioned. Some of the finest machines to grace the MTB world.
Are you crazy? Surely it should be filled with BSO brands and pieces of sh1te like Apollo, hawk and the like.
Now they are trully horrific bikes and I am sure we have all owned them in our younger days.
Or were some of you born with a silver spoon in your mouth and the first bike you ever had was an Orange 5?
Probably my first "proper" mtb which was a rockhopper. It was actually fine with a good spec, but fit me completely wrong so I hated it!
I'm surprised at the "rode it once, hated it" posts.
Every bike is night and day from the next and it takes few rides to get to know them.
I'll be honest, I sold my chameleon and bought a 5 Spot. For weeks I thad words with myself. The Chameleon was so many smiles per miles but looking back now, that frame was a back wrecker.
So harsh.
Still, I'd have another one.
My first adult sized bike was a Raleigh Mantis - steel, rigid and plastic. It was probably horrid but it got me into riding so it must have been brilliant.
I think the big manufacturers mentioned are "should have done better" rather than "cheap crappy bike you'd expect to be rubbish".
GB
I've never had a bike I didn't like but my wife once owned a Raleigh Lizard (purchased before I met her) and it had a gravitational field all of it's own.