On the road: Ikea Sladda bicycle review – ‘Build your own Ikea bike? It’s either a masterstroke or a recipe for disaster’

I worried I'd not screwed everything in tightly enough

'Ikea to start selling bikes" is a nightmare headline for the friendly independent bike shop. Not only could the Swedish behemoth take any custom the internet hasn't already siphoned off, but the bike shop will end up having to fix those inevitable DIY bike-building disasters when people who call saddles "seats" are let loose with some Allen keys.

The Sladda comes flat-packed, of course. I set aside an hour to build mine, figuring I know more or less what I'm doing. But an hour wasn't nearly long enough: I started at noon and finished at five, with time off for lunch. I got stuck three times: first when I put on the front forks the wrong way, next by fixing the kick-stand backwards, so the pedals wouldn't turn, and finally when I put on the handlebars upsidedown. As ever with Ikea, there are no written instructions, just ambiguous pictures.