Disposable bicycles

30-03-2007

A good way to keep fit without having to give up your lunch break in order to visit the gym is to switch from using vehicular transport to get to work, to using a bicycle. Your journey may take a little longer - there and back - but you will get fitter, and you are doing your bit for the environment as well.

With the weather improving I'm running out of excuses not to cycle to work myself. Or at least I was until recent bike thefts at the place I work left me a little dubious about cycling to work. The bikes that were stolen had locks but that still didn't stop the thieves. Although my bike is probably not worth much, I'd still be faced with the cost of replacing it if it was stolen. So for the past few weeks I've kept on driving to work and using my lunch breaks to hit the gym. Nothing has been done that I can see to improve the security of the bike stands, so I have not been tempted as yet to cycle to work. That is until I spoke to one of the people who had a bike stolen recently, and learned that they were planning on cycling in again. He's bought himself a better lock (a U-bar) and he is buying a new bike. "A new bike?" I asked. "Aren't you afraid it will get stolen?". He's hoping not, but to minimise his loss he's buying his new bike from Tesco for 35 pounds. Yep that's right. Tesco are selling a 26" frame 18-speed mountain bike for just under 35 pounds including delivery. So if it is stolen, he can buy a new one (and an even better lock presumably).

I could not believe that you could buy a new mountain bike for 35 pounds. I've checked the site and you can, although at the time I checked, they were temporarily out of stock.

I wrote an article some time ago asking if printers were disposable. Maybe now I should ask if mountain bikes are, I mean, now you can buy one cheaper than a decent printer. If it breaks down and you need a new part, buy another bike. Keep the old one as spares or strip it down and sell the parts to others that need them. I'm guessing that these bikes are worth more as a sum of parts than they are as a whole bike. Plus if these bikes become popular and are easily identifiable, will a bike thief want to steal them if the resale value won't even buy them a packet of cigarettes or a 6-pack of Stella?

By cycling to work instead of driving you are doing your bit for the environment. But by making bikes so cheap that they become disposable, are the companies that sell these bikes doing their bit? The processes involved in making these bikes is pretty harmful to the environment. And if their end value is so low, are we not just creating another problem when a new bike ends up in a landfill because it has a buckled rear wheel and it was cheaper to replace the whole bike than to buy a new wheel?