COMMENT: Bicycle Shaped Objects are cheap, but are they nasty?
Earlier this morning, blogger Karl McCracken tweeted a pic to the Twitter account of ASDA, the supermarket group.
He said ASDA was "selling dangerously mis-assembled forks-on-backwards bicycle shaped objects."
ASDA tweeted back: "Hi, please can you confirm which store this was so we can look into it?"
The snarky reply would be "All of them." Supermarkets don't tend to be very hot on the correct assembly of the bicycles they sell.
This is a good thing and a bad thing for the bike trade. On the one hand, it's good for a laugh ("supermarkets shouldn't sell bikes if they don't know how to install forks, do up quick releases etc.") but, clearly, many people feel it's perfectly acceptable to buy cheap bikes from supermarkets, and this is bad for bona fide bike shops because (a) that's a customer who may otherwise have sought out an IBD; and (b) the low, low prices of these bikes make people wonder why bike shops are charging so much.
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Mind you, it's a moot point whether bike shops would attract the kind of customer happy to put a bike in the trolley alongside the baked beans.
It's very possible that ASDA, Tesco and the rest are actually expanding the market for bicycles, by making this particular commodity more widely available. The corollary of this is that BSOs don't offer the best of riding experiences and folks who buy supermarket bikes may be put off cycling for life.
It would be nice to think we could "educate" consumers into buying higher quality bikes - and this is what bike shops and bicycle consumer magazines attempt to do on a daily basis - but, sadly, for a large sector of the UK population, bicycles are "toys", disposable items, not worth throwing down serious cash for.
Gratifyingly, there's another, smaller, sector of the UK population that's coming to realise bicycling addresses their transport or leisure needs and is willing to spend to get quality kit. No-one in their right mind could think an eighty quid bicycle will be able to stand up to the rigours of more than a ride or two. So, those who buy BSOs are not really lost to the bike trade, they were never really in the game to start with.
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3 comments
Know what you mean about the Asda/Tesco "specials"! Mind you, I've just picked up 20 of Asda's B/E Tulsa's as Spares or Repairs for a very reasonable price from a guy down in Sheffield & customers are paying £70.00 a pop for them with no complaints so far! I've sold 8 of them up to now & all they really needed was putting together properly and pedals (as the seller "taxed" these before I got them......DAMN! lol But YES!, I do have my reservations to the BSO's as I've had customer's comparing my prices on my BMX's as against the one's in Tesco's for just over £50.00! You tell them they are a pile of cr*p & you only get what you pay for, but it's the price tag that sells it. Yes!, they will complain that it ain't brilliant value (basically wanting Gold value @ tin prices....lol), but that's all I can afford is the usual banter. Ah-well! They'll never learn will they? Ian @ On Yer' Bike! Middlesbrough
Ian Galloway Jul 12th 2011 at 6:59PM
0 0I have a suspicion that Mr McKracken wasn’t being totally honest in this matter. Since when did ASDA start fully assembling bikes and selling them in a ‘ready2ride’ condition? As far as I am aware they sell their bikes in cartons which require ‘some assembly’. At best this would consist of fitting pedals and turning the handlebar through 90 degrees before tightening the expander bolt. Worst case would be having to fit the front wheel, fit handlebar/handlebar stem and then pedals. In both of these scenarios, it is possible for the customer to incorrectly assemble the bike and end up with the forks facing rearwards. As someone that has been in the Cycle Industry for 25 years I find this hard to comprehend but it happens time and time again. The question to be asked in such cases should be - why didn’t the customer read the Handbook/Owners Manual as even with the most budget priced bikes this clearly explains what has to be done. Often the response to this is the customer is an ‘Engineer’ so they know what they are doing!
Alan Bush Jul 14th 2011 at 9:42AM
0 1Look at BSO this way . Ok so you didn't sell it but who will be doing the servicing , repairs , sell the next bike the customer may want when they know what type of bike they really want?
nathan edmunds Jul 28th 2011 at 6:50PM
0 1