Bad quality bikes

[nspace]

It's rare that I work on anyone else's bike other than my own, or maybe a fellow cyclist friend; however this weekend a friend asked me to help them assemble a new Dutch style commuter bike they had ordered (no input provided by me).

I couldn't believe how low quality the entire thing was. It made me really appreciate the mid-higher end stuff that I would buy. I had to really straddle the line between honesty and coming across like an asshole and fearing that I would be perceived as being elitest or rude, and being positive/helpful (since its amazing that they want to ride a bike to work!)

Here was my experience:

• Upon unboxing the frame had a big paint chip on the tube tube, and fork (under the protective foam!)
• Not a single allen key bolt/adjust on the entire bike. All flat bolts for open ended wrenches.
• The sloppiest tolerances I've seen on a seat tube. To get the seatpost not to slip, I had to tighten the bolt so far beond the binder tabs being parallel
• This bike had a fully enclosed chainguard...made of flexible vinyl fabric
• Same flexible vinyl fabric used for a skirt guard, which was held on by tiny metal spring clips that clipped onto the lip of the fender, and another plastic friction fit clip on the seat stay. These were rubbing on the spokes out of the box and all you could do was push them to adjust their position. First ride, these things slid inwards and started rubbing on tire and spokes
• The bar and stem were one piece, no angle adjustment of the bars
• Front fender would not sit straight and had a massive dent in it out of the box
• Fenders didn't actually use fender eyelets, the struts just attached to the axle and got squeezed into the dropouts by the lock nuts
• Bolt tolerances were so low, it was hard to tell if they used a mixture of imperial and metrics sizes
• The crank bolts were so soft. I don't think I could get the NDS crank arm fully onto the taper without rounding it out. I ended up replacing them with proper stainless bolts with an 8mm hex.
• Stupid stubby woods style tire valve stem that 3 of my pumps wouldn't fully attach to, but managed to make it work
• They didn't include any sort of seat clamp (it wasn't part of the seat post), and I had to fish out a 25.4mm post out of my parts bin, and hacksaw off 2" off of it to get it to go far enough into the frame. Welp

The other concerns I had were more against the owner: the bike only had a coaster brake, and it was way too big for the rider—things I would help them steer clear of if they asked.

They have this idea that they are going to commute, rain or shine, on this bike (in Canada!). This is not the bike I would pick with our climate and infrastructure here but I feel like they have this romantic idea of riding this simple bike around like they are in Amersterdam. I kept most of my thoughts to myself, but said enough that I think they are contemplating sending it back (which is where I am going to get called on for disassembly duty).

How did you handle/navigate similar situations?!

[benb]

Sounds even worse than the Huffy I assembled for one of my wife's friend's kid.

Mom was kind of dead set on a Huffy for some reason, and for some reason it had to be ordered online?

The main issue was the brakes were dangerous and there was almost nothing I could do despite pulling every trick. I got it working but I feel like after it was ridden for an hour or two the brakes went back to being dangerous.

I think that bike had a coaster brake AND hand brakes so the coaster brake was the safety mechanism as it actually worked, it was the hand brakes that were scary.

And meanwhile if you go assemble a $1500-2000 treadmill or other type of gym equipment it is a LOT worse than that Huffy and a lot worse than the bike you just assembled. Even the stuff advertised as "commercial grade"/"gym grade" is pretty bad. Nice weight lifting benches, power racks, etc.. and equipment like Rogue are well made but a lot of other stuff and the especially the cardio machines seem really bad.

My wife bought a really expensive Nordic Track iFit treadmill and I assembled that and it was definitely *really* bad. Bad threads, bad fasteners, parts not precise enough to go together without bending them, plastic tabs that will break if the thing has to be disassembled to move it, etc.. fans that broke, major major software issues with the Android tablet built into it that drives the fancy features.

[HenryA]

Disengage.

This is not your fight.

[charliedid]

10 foot pole.

[veggieburger]

What brand/model bike are we talking about?

[EB]

Don’t worry - this bike will soon be forgotten somewhere next to the outdoor grill, quietly corroding until it gets thrown away to make space for some lawn equipment.

[Wolfman]

I get this...

As the "bike guy", you're called on to do bike things... when you show up, you realize that this thing you're being asked to help on is actually a such a hack that you feel embarrassed at your perceived lack of skill in this realm... it's a super weird dynamic.

I had a friend be frustrated at me once and say, "I thought you worked on bikes all the time... so I have to take it to a shop, or something?"

I felt bad, but I didn't even want to refer him to the shop I use because the whole thing was beyond help.

[benb]

It's the safety aspect that is scary.

I went into the LBS earlier this spring and had to wait in line while the mechanic went over a mail order bike and found numerous very dangerous issues with it and had to explain to the guy that they wouldn't work on it without an open checkbook on an hourly rate since they didn't want to touch it for liability reasons unless they were to completely go through the bike and fix every safety issue and replace everything that had to be replaced to make it safe. (This was a brand new junk level bike)

[unterhausen]

I got a Dutch bike for free, and was going to use it for a commuter. There are about 600 feet of climbing between our house and work. That thing weighed more than a vintage Schwinn varsity. I ended up donating it to a coop in a flatter place.

[nspace]

Originally Posted by veggieburger

What brand/model bike are we talking about?

This was the bike they bought. Wheelerz Omafiets. No mention in the description of the materials used for some of the chainguard/skirt guard stuff. Was shocking for a $900+ CAD bike.

My wife has a similarly price Linus, which while mostly impractical as a commuter, was much better quality.

[nspace]

Originally Posted by Wolfman

I get this...

As the "bike guy", you're called on to do bike things... when you show up, you realize that this thing you're being asked to help on is actually a such a hack that you feel embarrassed at your perceived lack of skill in this realm... it's a super weird dynamic.

I had a friend be frustrated at me once and say, "I thought you worked on bikes all the time... so I have to take it to a shop, or something?"

I felt bad, but I didn't even want to refer him to the shop I use because the whole thing was beyond help.

This is so relatable. I felt embarrassed at seeing so much of this stuff for the first time when it was done in the way it was on this bike. Was truly perplexed.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by benb

It's the safety aspect that is scary.

I went into the LBS earlier this spring and had to wait in line while the mechanic went over a mail order bike and found numerous very dangerous issues with it and had to explain to the guy that they wouldn't work on it without an open checkbook on an hourly rate since they didn't want to touch it for liability reasons unless they were to completely go through the bike and fix every safety issue and replace everything that had to be replaced to make it safe. (This was a brand new junk level bike)

I wonder what are the legal implications of such bikes being available. By law, all bikes sold in the US have to meet CPSC requirements, which are supposed to ensure basic safety. Do these bikes meet CPSC requirements, but are still unsafe? Or are bikes being sold which don't actually meet CPSC requirements? (Note: bikes don't have to be sent to some central authority to test if they meet CPSC requirements - it is up to the manufacturer to make sure that CPSC requirements are met.)

[mjf]

Originally Posted by benb

It's the safety aspect that is scary.

I went into the LBS earlier this spring and had to wait in line while the mechanic went over a mail order bike and found numerous very dangerous issues with it and had to explain to the guy that they wouldn't work on it without an open checkbook on an hourly rate since they didn't want to touch it for liability reasons unless they were to completely go through the bike and fix every safety issue and replace everything that had to be replaced to make it safe. (This was a brand new junk level bike)

100% this.

The cost of those bike is low for a reason, because they're sacrificing quality in order to get price down.

Working as a mechanic, we would see those types of bikes regularly. The cost to get them safely up and running, 99.99% of the time would exceed the cost of what they paid for the bike. On top of that, we would generally have bikes in the shop that were obviously of better quality, but less than the total cost to get their junk bike up and running.

[dave thompson]

Dutch commuter bikes, real ones that is, are pretty much throwaways. Being used like they do, not well cared for, parked in huge bike parking lots cheek to jowl parts scraping and gouging others parts, they are simple tools, like a hammer. There’s no beauty in them, just utility, all built to a low cost.

[Onno]

Does anyone know where this bike is actually made? China probably? On the other hand, the "omafiets" as a category does represent a completely different way of thinking about bikes--not as fancy finely made machines, but as something functional, cheap, and not worth stealing. And mass produced.

I was in vacation in the Netherlands (my motherland!) last summer, and my wife and I rented bikes from a big rental company, in order to get out of Amsterdam. They were a version of the omafiets, and they too were pieces of crap, partly because they were banged up, but also just because they are not very well made. The seat bolt couldn't be tightened enough to keep the saddle from moving, and the bottom bracket axle was out of alignment, among many other problems. In my experience, the Dutch didn't seem very interested in being able to stop quickly going on their bikes, preferring to dodge obstacles than stop for them. And they don't feel the need to ride very fast either. Also, no hills.

My mother bought a CCM version of that bike when she turned 70, and she happily road that through Saskatoon summers to the grocery store, reminding her of her youth. I also looked down on that bike for a while, until I realized that she was genuinely happy with it.