Raleigh Vegas

I've done a couple of thousand miles on my Raleigh Vegas - mostly on road (I put slicks on it). Bottom bracket bearing replaced recently, one spoke replaced otherwise I've changed the brake pads and that's it.

This is a very basic bike but you get what you pay for. Components are sound. Comfortable velo saddle. Fantatic value for money. I paid just over £100.

An ok bike if you want basics. Strong frame, brilliant brakes and gears that will last, all 18 of them.

A good strong bike and that is all. Very basic hence the price.

Quite a heavy bike, ok for off road but I would not want to do long road trips with this as there is no suspension. I thought of lejog but not with this beast.

I wanted a cheap mountain bike to take on holiday and I'd got about £100 to spend. Some hope. Lots available - mostly tacky imitations of the 'real thing'. Not this. The Raleigh Vegas has a strong steel frame. 18 very usable gears. Reliable brakes. That's it. No suspension. No frills. No style. Just a dead basic rock bottom well engineered not-pretending-to-be-anything-it-isn't off road bike. It's not going to get you up Ben Nevis and if you're into extreme go spend some real money. But for heath, woodland, bridlepath type of thing it does exactly what it says on the tin. With a bit of basic maintenance it'll still be going strong twenty years down the line. I wouldn't want to ride it more than a few miles on road and sometimes I think 'suspension and an aluminium frame would be nice' ...but you get what you pay for. I paid £110. Excellent!