Bargain bike challenge update

So far, I've replaced both wheels, swapped out the QR swekers for some bargain super-light confections, switched the bottle holder for the very light one on my old bike, and removed extraneous items (notably the bracket that held an ineffective pump). Oh, and I've upgraded the brakes, fitting a pair of Ultegra calipers I had spare, and put a new tyre on the back wheel. The bike, which weighed 9.6kg when I got it, now tips the scales at approximately... (drum roll...)

Total expense so far, if you ignore regular maintenance items like tyres and tubes, is:

• The bike (secondhand): £200
• Wheelset (secondhand): £100
• New QR skewers: £18.99
• Total: £318.99

Everything else I either had already or has been swapped for kit on my old road bike, or is an expense that I would have incurred anyway if I'd bought a new bike as originally planned, like an aero Wahoo mount and Bike Register fees. Basically, I'm only counting costs that are unique to my purchase of the project bike, and that wouldn't have been otherwise incurred.

Anyway, the next job will be switch saddles, putting my superlight sliver of carbon on the proect bike. But that's a job for another day.

Leverage

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
Archimedes

Well, that's all very well, Archimedes, but I bet you never tried to remove a seized-on cassette from a Mavic Aksium Elite hub.

Yes, the same cassette I broke my budget Lifeline chain whip trying to remove, still won't budge. All credit to Wiggle, they replaced the broken chain whip with something more substantial, at no additional charge and with free next-day delivery. It really was perfect customer service. However. I still can't move the cassette, a seemingly lightly-used Shimano 105 eleven-speed 11-28T, even with an eighteen-inch breaker bar - the lockring just won't budge. So why not leave it on, I hear you say? Because the rest of my set-up is ten-speed, plus I much prefer the spread of cogs on the bike's existing 11-30T Tiagra cassette, that's why.

Anyway, the net result of all this is that the project bike is off to my LBS for them to have a crack at it. A cost I didn't want to incur, especially as I just saw a secondhand bike going locally this morning that wouldn't have needed anything doing to it to bring it up to snuff and which would probably end up cheaper (and better!) than the project bike is going to be, once it's all done. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound...

The immovable object