Once when I was coming home after a night on the sauce, I was in desperate need of more wine, so like you do I bought a corkscrew/bottle opener from a 24hr garage near me. It was in that weird section of the shop where they also have buttons and sellotape on display. It was one of those with the two arms on the side that move up as you screw the screw in and then you pull them down to lever the cork out. Well, I got it (and a couple of bottles of nasty wine) home and was all set to carry on the evening's frivolity, but the arms on this corkscrew just bent without actually levering up the cork in the slightest. It was like the thing was made of grey Plasticine.
I always think of this when the subject of BSOs comes up. This was a corkscrew shaped object which, because it was made of cheese or 'monkey metal' as my old man would say, actually did nothing of the corkscrew function. That's not to say that an Apollo bike would function as a bike for a short while, it's just that there are cheap components on them that will inevitably fail more quickly than a higher quality component. If you're happy to replace bits and bobs of your bike, or as some have mentioned, be continually fettling your gears, then fine. It's a bit like banger-nomics I guess. Once the cost of replacing parts becomes too great then they might as well go to the scrappy. Really, really expensive bikes are a bit like sports cars, in that bits on those need replacing more often because they are engineered to such small tolerances etc. that they are easily knocked out of whack. I believe most of us sit somewhere in the middle, with 'decent' bikes that perform well with regular maintenance.
Christ, I've gone on a bit here. Sorry.
