Bad Bicycle Ideas

[rustystone2112]

Aluminum axel nuts on Sturmey Archer hubs

 

[Sped Man]

Bad bicycle ideas?
1. Repainting a bicycle with house paint

 

[Boris]

I'll take an even different approach to your different approach. I think I would have done the same thing as Schwinn did. I would not have seen a reason to change at all. My feeling is that the bikes that they made at the height of their success are the best bikes ever made. Why would they ever need to change them? .

I'm sure that you already know the answer, but I'll mention it just the same. In hindsight, yes it would be great if the old tried and true were kept in place, but when you're starting to lose marketshare because your stuff isn't keeping up with an ever-shifting market, you've got to readjust to stay competitive or lose out altogether. Sad but true, and business is business. This is not to say I condone the practice, it's just the way of the world or at least that's the way it's been in this country.

 

[Sped Man]

Farming out all of your manufacturing to a Chinese bicycle company that will eventually replace you. Sounds familiar Schwinn?

 

[cyclingday]

Closed fork ends.
Trying to get the wheel in or out of a fork with closed ends will make you want to get into vintage European road bikes. Just a flip of the quick release lever and watch as the wheel seems to drop out all by itself.
Thank you, Tullio Campagnolo!

 

[Bikermaniac]

Fork truss rods that hits the tank...

 

[SirMike1983]

SirMike1983 "I'll take a different approach. There are loads of absolutely rotten bicycle inventions, but what about just plain bad bicycle manufacturing and business practices?

Trying to maintain profit margins by cutting corners on manufacture of a current product instead of developing improved products to stay competitive. You can't win by cheapening your current product to keep up with down-market or imitation-type competitors. They beat you on price, and you can only "stand on your brand name" for so long before people migrate to other products. There's no substitute for keeping your components and bicycles sharp and competitive on quality and price. If you don't stay sharp, 20 years later you may find yourself as a brand of cheap junk sold in Wal-Mart, and loaded with faulty, plastic components on your bikes."

Story of what happened to Schwinn? Once desirable, They sat put on there technology (relied on brand name), and ultimately folded behind the curent market place.

That's a big part of what happened to Schwinn, but a fair number of American, French and British makers of bikes and components ended up the same way. There's a profound danger to losing your innovative edge and either farming out your operation, or just plain falling out of step. Today we're left wondering what might have happened if Schwinn had been able to adapt its welding capabilities to TIG welding aluminum (instead of thick-walled electro-forged carbon steel frames), of it Sturmey Archer had not been starved for money by its parent companies (the technology to build 5-speed hubs existed in the 1940s for Sturmey, and perhaps we could have been talking 7+ speed hubs by the 1960s). Instead Suntour, Shimano, and Giant out competed them.

 

[ricobike]

This one I'm sure to get a lot of crap for, but I think rear dropouts were a bad bicycle idea along with attaching the fenders and racks on the axles. Forward facing dropouts with a separate connection point for the fenders and racks were a vast improvement in bicycle maintenance in my opinion.

 

[kreika]

Pacemaker shrouds made out of crappy pot metal!!!!

 

[Goldenrod]

Loop (rear) frames on Whizzer 24" Pacemakers.