How to tell a good bike from a bad bike

We are often asked this question. If you know nothing about bikes, then it's hard to tell. If this is you, don't worry. Most people in the UK have no idea either, which is why shops are able to get away with selling such complete junk. In countries where there is a cycling culture, like Holland, there are far fewer bad bikes.

If you are buying from Common Wheel, then it will be a good bike. We don't waste time with rubbish. Also, as our primary aim is a pleasant theraputic experience for the people who attend, we choose bikes to work on that can be made to work and don't cause frustration.

If you are buying new it's fairly easy to get a bike that is well made and will last more than a week. Spend money. At present, £250 is about the point where bikes start being reasonable quality, £400 is much better and diminishing returns set in at about the £800-1000 mark. That is, a £400 bike is much better than a £200 bike, but a £2000 bike is not twice as good as a £1000 machine.
When buying new, you can still be sold completely the wrong thing for what you want to do and wind up wasting your money.

If you already have a bike, here a few ways to tell

What it says on the frame.
All bikes have some writing on them, usually the make and model, though this may have been removed or painted over. As a general rule, the more aggressive and exciting the name of the bike, the worse it is. Examples of really bad bikes with exciting names include Silver Fox Fury, Hardcore, Disk Demon, Scorpion Crush, Optima Corsa, Stealth Harlem, Raleigh Activator, Alpine Challenge (or Challenge Alpine, it hardly matters).

Good bikes have names like Dawes Double Blue, Equinox, Diana, Diploma, Horizon and Galaxy, Raleigh Wayfarer, Merlin, Medale, Caprice, Chiltern, Classic and Randoneur. Really good bikes have even more boring names, like Holdsworth, Ellis-Briggs, Tony Oliver, Major Nichols, Norwid, Hetchins, Alves, Freddy Grubb, Condor and M Steel. More great names are on the Classic Lightweights website.

Some bad bikes have boring names, like Apollo and Boardman.

If it says "Shimano equipped", it's junk. Shimano make parts in many different price points, and you have to be really scraping the bottom of the barrel not to fit their cheapest rear mech to a bike. Bikes with good shimano parts (Deore and above) don't say so on the frame.
Stickers saying "hand made" or "hand assembled" are meaningless. All bikes are put together by hand as robots are too expensive and apes get the ball bearings lost in their fur.
Sometimes there will be a sticker indicating the frame material. This is good. At least the manufacturer is trying to make the bike appeal to people who care about this important factor. Raleigh 18-23 and Peugeot 103 Carbolite are nothing special. Reynolds tubing goes from 453 to 953, the higher the number the better, with 531 being the classic tubeset. 753 is a special racing grade which the inexperienced are advised to leave alone. Tange and Columbus are also good tubing makers and come in a variety of grades.
Aluminium alloy has been used extensively recently. To tell alloy from steel, get a magnet. Alloy comes in various grades, which I won't go into as it's all a bit pointless. Aluminium alloy frames will break, and attempts to repair them will fail. There are very few old alloy frames about due to stress fatigue. They are harsh to ride and not significantly lighter when built up.

Titanium is used on some bikes, and has it's merits.  Carbon Fibre reinforced plastic can make a light, stiff frame, but one crash can shatter it like wood. Both Titanium and fancy plastic are pointless for commuting and touring bikes.

Weight
Can you lift the bike above your head with one hand? This isn't foolproof, as obviously some people are stronger than others. A heavy bike is not necessarily stronger than a light bike. If you have some scales, here are some guide weights. A top line Road Racing bike can weigh as little as 5.9 kg (13 lbs), a durable steel bike 11 kg (24 lbs), a fully equipped lightweight touring or commuting bike 13 kg (28 lbs), a 1950s 3 speed roadster 15kg (33lbs), one of our roadsters is 13.5 kg (30lbs) and a new alloy "comfort bike" is about 15 kg. Bikes any heavier than 18kg are bad news. The very ornamental Pashley Princess weighs 48 pounds (22 kg), or at least the random sample that visited our shop did.

Component Choice
All bits of the bike are important. Two of the most important bits are the headset and bottom bracket. They are also unglamourous and not very visible, so unscrupulous brands skimp on them. The headset is easiest to see. From the handlebar grips, move your hands inwards to the middle and then back to the next part. This is the stem. It connects to the steerer tube of the forks, which rotate in the frame on the headset bearings. Look at the top part of the headset. If there is a black hexagonal part, the bike is junk, a silver hexagonal part is bad news, but not sufficient on its own to consign the bike to the flames. If it has eight sides, the bike may be good. If you can't see anything with sides and all the bits are round, the bike has an Ahead system, which is found on better bikes (but is an unnecessary decadent frippery that has more to do with saving on manufacturing costs than making a better bike).

Telling a good bottom bracket from a bad one is hard to explain, and without taking it to bits it's hard to tell condition.

Plastic pedals are a really bad sign. The cheap ones will literally fall to bits in months.

Plastic brake levers are a disaster waiting to happen. When new they flex, as they get older the adjuster threads fail, then the whole thing will break off. To tell if a brake lever is bad, grab hold of it and bend it down. If you can bend it, the bike is junk. You will get thrown out of the shop, but no matter as it's obviously a bad shop anyway.

One common cost saving area is in the material the handlebars are made of. Steel ones are much cheaper than alloy. We had a bike in once where the steel handlebars were almost as heavy as the alloy frame.

Are there any springs, pivots or bouncy bits in the frame? Unless it's a Moulton (and therefore has 16" small wheels), it is probably a bad bike. For road use, the annular ring pneumatic suspension invented in the 1890s, tyres with air in them, is all you need.

I could go on, but following this guide will let you avoid the worst bikes.

Bikes get better and better the more money you spend. Some parts for bikes are engineered far beyond what is actually necessary. If you want to know how to tell the craftsman made works of art from the merely very good, come in and ask us.