they are appropriately heavy given their poor construction. There probably have been exceptions, but the cheap bikes I've been familiar with rarely had problems with their frames because they were so overbuilt. It's interesting to see mass production methods applied to framebuilding. Just as an example, a lot of the frames are spot welded together. I have a friend with a relatively recent Varsity, and that frame is amazingly heavy given that it's aluminum. They don't mess around.