I think that the cheaper equioment is better then more expensive

[Daniel_K]

From 7 years I every day ride to my work by bike. Is not important if is good or bad weather. To work I have about 10 km.
How many people from this forum do the same , and how offen you need to change your chain and the drive?
I need do it always after winter. The snow and salt always destory the drive.
I think that the cheaper equioment is better then more expensive.
How do you think, do you agree with me ?

(By this forum I would like to improve my english language, so excuse me bad knowledge)

[pwa]

I think you are wise to choose the Spring to change the chain and other bits. And cheaper parts can last as long as expensive ones, at least with some things. They just tend to be a little heavier and not so good looking, but that does not matter.

[Heltor Chasca]

Welcome Daniel. No snow here (Somerset, UK) really for a couple of years so not too many issues with chains etc.

Where is your commute? If you are going to be touring around the U.K., don't forget 'Warmshowers' which is a fantastic, free accommodation site.

Best wishes.

[Grandad]

Like almost everything else the more expensive things are subject to the law of diminishing returns.

A £60 tyre is better than a £12 one but is it 5 times better? The answer depends on whether or not you are prepared to pay the premium cost for the improvement in performance.

I'm perfetly happy with my steel Spa audax bike but did buy a pair of £60 tyres when they were half price

[Username]

From 7 years I every day ride to my work by bike. Is not important if is good or bad weather. To work I have about 10 km.
How many people from this forum do the same , and how offen you need to change your chain and the drive?
I need do it always after winter. The snow and salt always destory the drive.
I think that the cheaper equioment is better then more expensive.
How do you think, do you agree with me ?

(By this forum I would like to improve my english language, so excuse me bad knowledge)

In what way is cheap equipment better? You stated that you think certain cheap stuff is better, but you didn't explain why? Would you please elaborate on this?

[Elizabethsdad]

In Southampton we get very little snow and ice so the gritters are not out that much. For some time now I have been a convert to hub gears and braking which mean no rim wear, less chain wear plus the chain can be protected inside a chaincase.

[gaz]

I think that the cheaper equioment is better then more expensive.

Logically any equipment cheaper than that which I fit on my bike isn't fit to be on it or I'd fit that instead, anything more expensive is an unnecessary extravagance for the same reason .

Or I could just have a limited budget .

[Lance Dopestrong]

I used to commute all weathers, even snow. Snow was hard work but good for polishing up control skills.

I'm a heavy, strong rider and was wearing chains to 0.75 in about 1500miles. I'd get 3 or 4 chains per cassette, and I've never yet worn a chain ring to the point that it required replacement.

[Daniel_K]

I used a lots of them mainly Shimano Deore, but last time I bought cassette + chain + crank in Decathlon and all of them costs three times less.
I ride about 5500 km per year and I can't find any justification to buy expensive equimpment, apart from the lower weight them. So if my weight is about 93 kg, buy something expensive for a few grams less weight is not profitable.
The most important for me is that the chain does't jump or rotating on the cassette and crank when I go up.
Plese be nice and share your opinion or see the obvious benefits of using expensive equipment


I drive by bike in Warsaw where in winter snow lies on bicycle path during one or two months. I use also my bike to weekend tour in the woods.

(By this forum I would like to improve my english language, so excuse me bad knowledge)

[gaz]

Please be nice and share your opinion or see the obvious benefits of using expensive equipment

The truth is that it isn't that straightforward.

CJ, formerly Technical Officer of CTC, makes some observation on SRAM chains here. Cheapest is certainly not necessarily best, beyond a particular point the gains to be made are marginal.

Marginal gains have their place in competition, less so in commuting.

[Lance Dopestrong]

But expensive doesn't always bring gains, even marginal ones. The recently announced £30,000 race bike by Bugatti is a case in point. A fearsome amount of money for a race bike that appears not to actually qualify for any top flight race formulae. Oops.

Chris King headsets. Superb. But no lighter, better finished, higher performing or more durable than a typical brand name headset at half the price.

Charge/Madison saddles. Cheap as chips, and very popular as legions of riders find them more comfortable than £200 jobs from some other manufacturers.

There may be some degree of correlation with price, performance, weight and durability, but it is not an especially broad one, and is far from being universally true. Its a constantly moving target, and to say that expensive, cheap or in between prices always provide the superior product would be rubbish.

[meic]

To my mind there are plenty of cycling components where a cheap option is much better than more expensive ones and visa versa where the expensive things are better but not as frequently better value for money.

One which always gets me is how much better the gear changes are with the cheap Alivio-Tourney-Deore set up on my utility bike than the DuraAce-XT-Tiagra on my best bike.

On the other side my old UN91 bottom bracket is quite superior to the lesser UN5x and UN71s that I also had in terms of weight, smoothness and longevity.

Relatively cheap Shimano SPD pedals are better than much more expensive other brand SPD pedals.
The expensive Campagnolo C9 chain is much better than any other that I have tried, getting twice the life of any SRAM that I have used.
Personal experience and recommendations from people that you trust are a better indicator than price but in their absence price is often all you have to go on.
An example of that is the range of Shimano external bottom brackets, with an escalation of price as you work through the range, yet there is a suspicion that they may all include identical bearings under the labels, or maybe they dont!

[hamster]

I used a lots of them mainly Shimano Deore, but last time I bought cassette + chain + crank in Decathlon and all of them costs three times less.
I ride about 5500 km per year and I can't find any justification to buy expensive equimpment, apart from the lower weight them. So if my weight is about 93 kg, buy something expensive for a few grams less weight is not profitable.
The most important for me is that the chain does't jump or rotating on the cassette and crank when I go up.
Plese be nice and share your opinion or see the obvious benefits of using expensive equipment


I drive by bike in Warsaw where in winter snow lies on bicycle path during one or two months. I use also my bike to weekend tour in the woods.

(By this forum I would like to improve my english language, so excuse me bad knowledge)

Agreed that Deore is close to the optimum groupset that Shimano make - not compromised severely by cost but still at a low price. But remember a Deore groupset still costs more than many / most bikes.

[reohn2]

....The expensive Campagnolo C9 chain is much better than any other that I have tried, getting twice the life of any SRAM that I have used.......

Which presumably means they're made of harder steel,that being the case they'd wear out a Shimano cassette quicker(?)
So if you get twice the life out of the chain(for around twice the cost of a Sram chain)perhaps the cassette will needs changing when the chain's worn out.

If I look after them(give them a clean when they look mucky and don't over lube them) I get around 4k miles out of a Sram 971 chain(run to 0.75%) and three chains see off the cassette,3x chains cost £35,Deore or Tiagra cassette around £15 = £50,if the shifting is still good I run the last chain for another 1k miles unless it's jumping the cogs,which TBH is rare = 12k to 13k miles

Campag C9 chain = £24,cassette = £15 for 8kmiles(?) = £39,even if the cassette will stand a second C9 it's not so economical.

[meic]

By the laws of coincidence, I have just ended my trial run on C9s. It didnt go well for exactly the reason which I mentioned years ago and you have bought up again now, they were incompatible with the cassettes' lifespan.
So the C9 were disappointing value for money wise (though they were of the same order as cheaper chains possibly even equal depending on which was on offer) yet they were most certainly a much better chain lasting two to three times as long.

This was the point I was making in the post. A C9 chain is considerably better than a cheaper SRAM PC971 etc, lasting over twice as long.

even if the cassette will stand a second C9 it's not so economical.

The mismatch was worse than that, a C9 will outlive a single SRAM PG970 cassette