I've found this to be an interesting thread. It's far more useful to see how and why a product fails than simply saying it sucks. I'm interested in how the experiment turns out. My first road bike was a {gasp} western auto murray. I suppose it sucked but I rode it a lot and didn't have any actual component failures. Of course this was over 35 years ago, friction shifters where not as picky as index shifters. I managed to make the few little adjustments to keep it in tune.

My next road bike, my first real one, was a peugot and it was a night and day difference from the murray.