I own 6 Apollo FS 26S and they spend all their time on rough terrain in the Austrian Alps. For the price they perform amazingly. They get VERY bad treatment and just keep going - albeit with regular maintenance. The original crank bearings did need replacing and the brakes need regular adjustment. The gears cause little problems and chains only come flying off die to mis-treatment and the users lack of understanding about changing gear - you CAN'T just twist the grip! The bikes cost £70 on Ebay and I keep looking for more! PS anyone putting a push bike into a shop for new brake pads doesn't deserve a push bike - do it yourself!

I TOOK MINE BACK IT BEGAN TO FALL APART AFTER 5 WEEKS
I was impressessed when i first bought the bike but just a few weeks later the brake pads wore away so i could hardly brake and the gears kept slipping and the gripshift gear change started to fail.
Halfords fixed the problems with the gears at the free service but wanted to charge me £15 for new brake pads just six weeks after purchase. I got them free after I complained. After the service, the bike really started to fall apart. The gears quickly screwed up again and the brake pads wore away. I had two punctures because of cheap tyres and the chain broke in two at one point. The bike also started making all sorts of clinking and mechanial noises and the front tyre started rubbing against the frame making another annoying noise. A few days ago, the chain began getting stuck in the cheap plastic ring surrounding the cogs when i moved it to third gear and every time this happened, i had to spend 10 minutes at the roadside fixing it, only for to happen again a few minutes later.
I decided to take the bike back and this is when I realised that the wire connecting the brake handle to the brake pad was about to snap as it had become very thin at one point. If i had ridden it any further, it could have snapped and could have killed me. It could be very dangerous.
This bike would have literally fallen apart if i had ridden it any further. Halfords gave me my money back and i bought a Carrera Subway 1 for £185 down from £280 to replace it. This is a much better bike.
It is a deathtrap in my opinion that will fall apart so don't make the same mistake I did and spend at least £180 on a decent bike. Apollo are very poor and the once prestigious Raleigh are not much better these days.
To be fair, I was riding it quite a few miles every day which is a bit too much for a cheap bike. This bike should be OK if you are only planning to use it occasionally, otherwise according to the sales assistant at Halfords, you should spend at least £250 on a bike that you want to use every day. If you want to spend less than that then buy one in sale like I did where you can get one with an RRP of higher than £250 for around £180 or £200

Great bike for the price. Has everything you would want from a mountain bike unless of course you are a pro and then I guess you would be considering the weight and would want foot holders etc. My last bike, 8-9 years old, was a Dawes which was quite expensive and was considered a quality bike in its day. As materials are so cheap now days and technology has moved on, the Apollo walks all over the Dawes. Definitely a good buy!

The Apollo FS26 was for us a very cheap - about £105 - replacement for my previous Barracuda bicycle (which had cost about £250) that had recently been stolen out of my homes vacinity, therefore not being covered by household insurance.

The bike didn't seem to lack anything that I wanted, and I really liked the appearance of the spokes of the tyres. Circular handle gears are mandatory for most manufacturers now, or so they fell, so the addition of these of this bike was of no surprise since the technology had been in use for some time now, anyway.

The bike gives a very comfortable ride. The Appole Full-Suspension Technology gives a real smooth a cheery feeling to your riding and the bell, although illegal to not have, is still nice to have there.

It only took me about 3 months of weekly short bursts of use to wear the tyre treads down to pretty much nothing, but still about 1 years and 10 months later the tyres still do work to some degree although they may not be worthy of riding on A or M categorized roads - which I do not do anyway. If you were to fell you need new tyres, they would cost you a maximum of £19.99 each for the original, but strengthened, set. If that's too much you can always substitute for a cheaper alternative from anywhere else so as long as you get the right size.

Although a mountain bike, there doesn't seem to have been made any effort to look after the rider during mountainous riding; there are no mud guard, shoe holds or even a drinks holder...but these can all be added optionally by you at a cost at a later time if you wish for these commodities.

I have had this bike for over a 2 years now and in that time I have grown! That seat and those handles have quickly crept up and now both are at their limits and have been for about 6months. This is irritating because in the future this could mean that the bike is poor for my needs and I may need to invest more money in a larger bike in the future. Still, I guess that's partly my fault, although I still feel that more effort should have been made to allow the bike to be more expandable.


But, all-in-all, this is a fantastic bike!