Favorit Rapido

"Kirk" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I got this bike for $40, at a garage sale, about 10 years ago. Anyone

know

Quoted message said:

anything about this brand of bike? It was made in Czechoslovakia, if that helps.

Even though I've owned the bike for a decade, I started riding it

seriously

Quoted message said:

only a year or so ago. I guess this means I'm pretty new to riding.

While I'm happy with the bike, I'm just wondering how it compares to others. I put on a new seat,
new handlebar tape, a couple of bags, new pedals with the toe-strap thingies, and some other
geegaws.

I get the feeling that I'm riding one old, ugly bike, one with a bunch of stuff tacked onto it.
It's got just two gears in the front; no

suspension

Quoted message said:

whatsoever; and center-pull brakes, which have never worked very well. Outfitted with my
road-touring stuff, it weighs around 28 lbs. (13kg)

Is it a pretty normal bike for road riding today, or am I riding the equivalent of one of those
early 1900's bone-breakers?

I'm not planning on getting rid of it. I'm just curious how it compares

to

Quoted message said:

others.

-- Kirk

"I [censored] Harry Potter."

-- bumper stickers we all wished we'd see, but don't.

Ahhhhh....the Favorit...or as we used to say, Not MY Favorit!!! Yeah, you're riding a
communist-produced piece of junk. Sorry!! :-) Seriously, they were OK bikes when they were new but
we started to have serious supply problems for parts. Some parts were completely non-standard sizes
and we simply couldn't get spares. I can't remember details, but it would be things like a handle
bar stem that was, say, 26.2mm in diameter when the industry standard was 25.4. I doubt they're even
produced anymore. We never sold them but some of the Eastern European immigrants here imported them
and we ended up fixing them.

From the ride standpoint, they are pretty modern. They used pretty much standard Italian-style
geometry so they ride pretty normal. They generally had horrible paint and finishes. They used
Eastern-bloc produced components, no Japanese or Western European stuff generally. Their kid's bikes
were worse: coaster hubs with no available parts, 12 and 18" diameter tires with no replacements, a
nightmare. I like to think of them as the Yugo of the bicycle industry.

Cheers,

Scott..

S. Anderson said:

Ahhhhh....the Favorit...or as we used to say, Not MY Favorit!!! Yeah, you're riding a
communist-produced piece of junk. Sorry!! :-)

Seriously,

Quoted message said:

they were OK bikes when they were new but we started to have serious

supply

Quoted message said:

problems for parts. Some parts were completely non-standard sizes and we simply couldn't get
spares. I can't remember details, but it would be things like a handle bar stem that was, say,
26.2mm in diameter when the industry standard was 25.4. I doubt they're even produced anymore. We
never sold them but some of the Eastern European immigrants here imported them and we ended up
fixing them.

From the ride standpoint, they are pretty modern. They used pretty much standard Italian-style
geometry so they ride pretty normal. They

generally

Quoted message said:

had horrible paint and finishes. They used Eastern-bloc produced components, no Japanese or
Western European stuff generally. Their kid's bikes were worse: coaster hubs with no available
parts, 12 and 18"

diameter

Quoted message said:

tires with no replacements, a nightmare. I like to think of them as the Yugo of the bicycle
industry.

Hey, thanks for the info. For $40, it seems like a pretty good bike.

-- Kirk

In <[email hidden]>, "Kirk" <[email hidden]> opined:

Quoted message said:

Hey, thanks for the info. For $40, it seems like a pretty good bike.

There are a whole lot of bikes you could have gotten for $40 that you wouldn't say were "pretty
good", so that's all that really matters, right?

--
Dave Salovesh [email hidden]