Cheap bikes - another view.

Regular readers will know I have a bit of a soft spot for cheap bikes.
I don't bother with cheap bikes with suspension - front or rear, as they are just a waste of money.
They weigh even more than a "no-suspension" cheap bike, and make moving loads a lot more complicated - the racks available for "suspension" bikes either have a lower weight rating, or are MUCH more expensive, or both.
Suspension has a place for "off-road" bikes, but for regular, daily, use in urban environments it is a fashion statement, not an upgrade! (the same goes for higher-priced bies as well).

My beloved (and recently broken!) Cinzia folding bike, that I have had owned for about 20 years was just a cheap, heavy, bike, with variable build quality and some wierd-ly sized parts (like the 25mm seatpost and the 36mm bottom bracket).
My wife rides a cheap flat-pack bike, and is very happy with it.
I've just fixed her the "spare" bike - my wife's previous cheap flat-pack bike.

A cheap, flat-pack, bike, with aftermarket side stand and front basket and rack.
It beats a "no-racks" "fancy" bike every time as a load-hauler
Suspension is best avoided on a "working" bike, as it complicates
fitting racks, and either lowers the overall load rating or
dramatically increases the cost, or both.

Yes, cheap bikes can have some issues:

All good things come to an end

Bad news.

Structural failure of my folding bike.
the bottom bracket has broken away from
the U-tube frame

My little Cinzia folding bike, that I have owned for about 20 years, suffered a serious structural failure on the evening of the 8th October 2013.

How to get a bike for free ... (in the UK, at least)

The UK Government has recently decided to sell off the national postal service, Royal Mail.
It is the view of the (opposition) Labour Party that the shares about to be floated have been priced too cheaply, to the tune of about 1 billion pounds overall (that's about 1.2 billion Euros, or about 1.6 billion dollars).

UPCOMING: bike pump mega test.

I will shortly (in a week or two) be posting multiple test results on my growing collection of bicycle pumps.

I have another "track" pump on the way - the courier should deliver it tomorrow.
It is from the Edinburgh Biccycle Co-operative.
I already have a cheap Lidl (a German supermarket chain) track pump, and a track pump from Argos.

"Track" pumps from Revolution (own brand of Edingburgh Cycle Cooperative),
Muddy Fox (a mass-produced brand owned by Universal Cycles),
and Crivit (own brand of Lidl GmbH, a European supermarket chain).
Also shown is a Crivit mini-pump.

I also have a mini-pump from Lidl, and a regular 2-chamber car (automobile) foot pump.

All our bikes have Schraeder valves on the tyres (tires) - that's a "car-" ("auto-") type valve, and recommended pressures of, variously, 45 to 70 psi (about 3 bar to 5 bar), so the tests and reports will be aimed at that, rather than their performance on high pressure valves (such as "Woods") or skinny high pressure tyres.
As with all my test reports, it is real equipment I have bought with my own, real, money, and it is tested to reflect the way we use stuff, not some theoretical manufacturer's testing program on a borrowed piece of equipment.

The test is here

Still Here!

After suffering some tech. problems, we are full functional again.
Our internet was down from its usual 10Mb/s to about 50Kb/s to 1Mb/s - depending on the day - and sometimes it didn't work at all :-(
The ISP company sent out an engineer, and he fitted a new combined modem/router.
So we are back, with 20Mb/s !