We were having a discussion in the office yesterday about the benefits customers get when they buy a bike from us. One of the things that we do as standard is build up all our bikes and PDI them (basically have a trained mechanic fine tune them) before the customer leaves the shop.

This is probably what you would expect us to do, and all good bike shops will do the same. Increasingly though bikes (or bicycle shaped objects) are being sold by outdoors shops, supermarkets and toy shops. In many cases these bikes are sold flat packed and the customer is expected to build the bike up, the incentive to the customer being that these bikes are super cheap.

The case of Asda’s new bike range illustrates why this is not always a good idea. The Guardian’s bicycle blog reviewed the bike on Wednesday. They immediately had problems with the build and the quality of its parts. Their local bike shop advised them that the bike could only be expected to last 4 or 5 weeks before it would have to be thrown away. Then on Thursday Asda announced that they were having to withdraw their TV advert to promote their new bikes as they had filmed the ad with the bikes forks on the wrong way around meaning that it would be completely unsafe to ride.

Asda's super cheap bike (with the forks on the correct way around)

So Asda might have Britain’s cheapest bike but it is likely to only last a month or two. That is if you, unlike Asda, know how to build it. Buying a bike from us, or any other reputable bike shop, means you can forget about the spanner work and get on with enjoying your bike.

Asda TV ad