Originally Posted by
blamp28
It does matter in terms of reliability for the OPs stated needs. If a rider purchases the absolute cheapest stuff money can buy that will fit on the bike, it will ride pretty much like the more expensive stuff when new but will not last nearly as long. The OP says they ride 60-70km a week so the recommendation I made will work well for some time. If he were using the bike off road, I would recommend at least a slightly more durable combo.
There are plenty of bikes in the under $200 category and they will work fine for casual usage but this rider is riding enough that a more dependable and thus more expensive setup is justified and may in fact be lest costly in the long run. There is a bike for just about every need out there.
Our cheapest chain/cassette combo is $34. I put a set on my commuter/utility bike on December 14th of last year. So far ~3600 kms of all weather use and it's still running strong.
Edit- saw you're talking cranksets too. That's running on the original Deore Biopace crankset from the early 90's