The worlds most embarrassing bike ever

[oddball1313]

Just watching some channel 4 drivel on stupidly expensive tat the uber rich buy and this $379k piece of junk makes an appearance

http://hauteliving.com/2015/01/goldgenie-24k-gold-...

fking Shimano Claris groupset and a suede saddle. Steel frame as well with gold plating, i bet the bd thing weighs about 15kg and you can get to look a complete bellend as an added no fee attached bonus

A £750 aluminium boardman from Halfords would be 100 times better

[The_Jackal]

LOL you CAN polish a turd then!

[anonymous-user]

i remember his Dragon's Den pitch, gold plated probably a few hundred quids worth of gold.

I guess certain parts could be done to bling up your bike.

[yellowjack]

For a gold plated bike that IS cool, and actually usable...


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raleigh-Centenary-Gold-...

1987 Raleigh Centenary, No 65 of 200, and claims (and FWIW looks) to be absolutely unused. Yours for £2,995.00.

[neilski]

I have the non-gold version of this bike.



Which if I remember rightly was a special edition for Joseba Beloki for the 2003 TdF in which he crashed out, breaking his hip in the process and causing Lance to do a bit of cyclocross across a field before rejoining the other riders pretty much where he was.

The shop I bought my bike had one for £7k I think then years later it was still there for £5k. I suppose it's not a bad bike for €3.695 now if you don't mind riding 14 year old technology!

[yellowjack]

There's a lesson in here somewhere... https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15963656/vertu-... - and - https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16124838/luxury... ...for companies who set up to pander to idiots with too much money by selling blinged-up last generation technology.

Local (to me) firm Vertu (it was built on the site of an old army barracks, and gave it's name to the Strava segment "Vertu Kick") closed down with debts of $128million. The contents of the factory were sold off this year.

The Verge article linked above said:

"The company’s UK operation was home to teams of skilled workers who assembled Vertu handsets using materials like ostrich leather, precious metals, and jewels. The resulting phones were technologically antiquated (they ran old version of Android using last year’s processors) but uniquely extravagant, with some handsets costing in excess of $30,000..."

I can only see this gold plated bike nonsense going the same way to be honest. Perhaps if they took a beautiful hand made, bespoke high grade steel frame, blinged that up with some 24k gold plate, then slung Dura-Ace Di2 or Campag's finest onto it (unplated) so that it was just about reasonable to ride it? Maybe that would be a semi-sensible idea. But as it is? It's just idiots selling expensive crap to other idiots.

[Rich_W]

I always wondered about Vertu's business model. Old Nokias rebuilt

But I assumed they were doing OK since they had a Porsche Supercup entrant. And were well known.

No real surprise they've folded.