squeakywheel

I bought a cheesy little 24 inch wheeled full suspension mountain bike for my son when we lived in a city of 8 million people (Yokohama). Paid $200 for it. My favorite part was the plastic crank arms.

Impractical in the extreme, but he was happy. Had it in his head he wanted a Y-bike for his birthday. It was in fact, his first new bike. Previous bikes were hand-me-downs from his big brother. Fortunately for him, his big brother had bent the fork on the next hand-me-down bike.

I rode that bike home through the streets of Yokohama. Must have been a hilarious sight. A fat gaijin on a kids toy bike riding through town. I had to ride with my knees turned out to avoid hitting them on the handlebars.

Artkansas 

This!


My Giant Stiletto chopper that I bought as a combination divorce/birthday gift to myself.

It's too small, it doesn't go up hills well, but it's a fantastic parade bike. I can lean it over and do insanely fast doughnuts in the street with its round tires, and kids love to see it.

It's also great for riding around the industrial park and destressing and stepping back from the problem that's worrying you.

It's also nice for riding on the bikepath along the river. The upright position lets you see well.

Mariner Fan

1989 Pinarello Montello (frame only)





It's chromed underneath the paint so I hope to make it into a show bike. It will only be ridden on nice days.

ghettocruiser

Out on the road it can easily hold 4 mph.

d2create

I got this for xmas and have only ridden it once so far.
But it's cool!



It's just too slow to ride with the wife when she wants to get some real excercise and too slow to commute with. So i just haven't had a chance to use it much. Oh, but an addition to one ride that I did, I also walked the dogs with it once. One of them at a time.

StokerPoker

lets see...there's the Town & Country Tri-wheeler, the Stingray Mini-Twinn, and then the Toy's R Us full suspension mountian bike I bought when I was 15 after my SuperCycle and I got hit in front of the cemetary on my wau home from working at Dunkin Donuts one night. I made the MTB a little more fun later and that's the only pic i have of it. I put many miles on it with the ape hangers and loved every one of them.

Crap, the pics are all on my laptop so I'll have to post them later.

Alfster 

No impractical bikes here. At least not yet. Just had to say I love this shot. Great composition.

urban rider

The worst bike I have ever had not counting the 27 inch centurian that was too big, Sears bike that was too heavy is the Mongoose full suspension bike I have. You can hear me coming from around the block because of the squeaking. The first Mongoose broke in the frame I sent for a replacement, it isn't much better. I made it my winter bike.

Gas, the price of a can of beans.

StokerPoker

Pics of the above mentioned bikes. The trike sold for more than twice what I paid for it which more than made up for my first ever cycle related buyer's remorse. the Mini-Twinn sold for twice what I paid for it as well and has been my only case of seller's remorse. That bike, though impractical, was just cool to have and even cooler to ride. the Pacific MTB...well, it was still ridable when I decided to strip it down and part it out for other projects.

-=(8)=-

^^^ That aped out Pacific makes you my new cycling hero !!


That bike rocks !! Really !

daredevil

Are we related? Or maybe it's the obssesive nature of a lot of cyclists.

I have 5 bikes already, am primarily a commuter and hobbyist as well, and now I'm considering a single speed which, living in the mountains, is not practical at all! I would seldom get to ride it. That being said, there's a nice Redline single speed at the LBS that I'm keeping my eye on if the price happens to drop a bit.

StokerPoker

not sure if I should say "thanks" or "finally, someone as crazy as I am...."

ECDkeys

Obsessive I am, definitely. But I've realized I've reached my practical limit. I'm spending most of my time on the FG, even though my others have their obvious advantages. I find myself favoring certain bikes however during sustained periods of time, so there's no telling when my preference will flip over to the others.

The three I haven't touched yet: triathlon, folding, recumbent. For reasons mainly having to do with geometry, I'm reluctant to venture here. Although the tri bike would've been my first to attempt (hence the reason for my original post).

Oh, and don't let hills deter you from getting SS/FG. At first I was fearful of climbing hills on my FG, and admittedly it took awhile, but now it's not really an issue. I've become a much better hill climber in probably a shorter amount of time than if I had ridden multi-geared.

Brian Ratliff

^^^^^
True that on the fixed gear. My only case of buyers remorse is with my fixed gear. Not because I don't like riding fixed; I love it and it's been pretty much the only bike which has left the garage (twice weekly commutes) in 2007. My buyers remorse comes from the slew of pretty crappy OEM components which came with the bike. I should have put it together from the frame up; more expensive, yes, but I don't have to deal with parts prematurely wearing out. But... after replacing the seat and shiming the seat post, changing the brake pads, replacing the chain after only two months of riding, changing the gearing half a dozen times, rebuilding the rear wheel, replacing the bottom bracket, replacing the cartridge bearings in the rear wheel, and replacing a broken spoke in the front wheel, all in the first year and a half of ownership, the bike is finally more of a joy than a pain to ride.

catatonic

Impractical would be my folder.

In actuality it would be extremely practical....except the maintenance is so high...I think I need to buy a few tubes of loctite and go to town on the bike.

I also found that bike cannot be hammered on like my other bikes....that goes directly against my riding style...so I'm now trying to find more durable parts to replace the stuff that's creaking and popping.

My roadbike is a close second....it can't even fit 700x25c tires (let alone fenders), even after I ground down the brake bridge welds as much as possible. It's position is also not very good for long rides, or rides with large amounts of cargo in my messenger bag. Oh, and it can't fit a rack.....however up until the frame broke, it was the most reliable bike I owned, 10sp rear and all.

My mountain bike wins the crown for most practical though....tough as nails, drivetrain may be finnicky but will nto let you down, has partial-fenders on the front and rear, armored tires....pretty much if it can't do a commute, nothing can. Oh and it's middle of the pack for road speed of my 3 bikes.

JustBrowsing

No kidding. Something tells me he needs to put on a full suit of Fred-gear sometime and hit the road with that thing...

Gurgus

My most impractical bike purchase, right here. Bought for five bucks as a peice of junk, spent maybe another hundred to build it to this point. I say impractical because it's got a 20 inch hookworm on the back with a 26er on the front. The gearing is just rediculous. It's 42x15 with super short kids cranks. Makes for some work to get it up to speed and at speed it can get kinda unstable because it is so short and tall. The bike is maybe five feet long but about 3.5 feet tall at the schwinn grips. Brown corderouy seat is actually off of a kids bike and was reskinned using an old pair of pants that no longer fit me. Front brake only with a freewheel. Frame sissybar and tank are powdercoated satin black. This thing is the wheelie king, but, with such a small rear wheel, it get really weird on it's rear tire. Chromed out front squish fork ups the bling factor a bit.

Speedwobbles and tankslappers FTW!

StokerPoker

I would get some horrible looks from the roadies on their Saturday recovery rides as I passed them on that thing

vinnydelnegro

the trike and the tandem are so sweet. if you don't mind me asking, how much did you get for the tandem?

JeffS

I'm jealous - even looks like it might be large enough for me. If the guilt of letting it gather dust becomes too much to bear I'll definitely take it off your hands

vinnydelnegro

my brother in law has that bike. it's pretty cool, but i think it's one of those bikes that people get that hardly ever gets ridden.

StokerPoker

Not as much as I could have if I tried. I ended up selling it to an LBS owner for $250 who said he was buying it for his girlfriend's kids to ride. I'm pretty sure the story was BS, but I needed money at the time and I only paid $125 for it about 4 years before that. All I did to it was polish the chrome.
I could have gotten twice what I got for it, or even more if I would have posted ads and held out, but desperate times cause stupid decisions.

donnamb 

Do it and let us know if their faces freeze that way!

sbhikes

If you're going to go out and ride that aped Pacific, make sure you wear old jeans, a white tank top, a 5 o'clock shadow and sport a cigarette dangling from your lips. If it's cold, put on a puffy down jacket, but leave it open so you can still see the wife beater tank.

Mos6502

I had this one old Pre-War Hawethorne balloon tire bike. It was awesome. But it weighed a ton, had only one speed, the coaster brake was overly sensitive to back pedalling, and those tires - it was like having to pedal a bike made out of sponge cake through a foot of mud. But it had a truss fork and big fenders, and I found it at the thrift store for something like $12 so I couldn't pass on it. I sold it for about four times that much I think.