Road Cycling - Home grown bikes

I haven't notice very many discussions concerning 'Home made' bikes. Aside from the obvious benefits of getting the components you want, what is a reasonable expectation on cost savings. Some descriptions of current projects and success stories would be interesting.

Generally, you'll probably end up paying more unless you find real good deals on parts or buy them used... Bigger bicycle companies can buy more and thus sell more and thus pass a savings onto you of sorts... in my opinion. Every project bike I've done has inevitably cost more than if I were to just buy a new bike. With the exception of my single speeder probably.. a used frame and relativly low-end parts...

Getting a good frame for a deal is what it really takes to be sucessful at saving money when doing a build. Getting a 800 dollar frame for 150 bucks and then building it up is the kind of deal you need to find. Ebay can be your best friend. Im currently building up the bikes right now. One mtb and two road/TT bikes.

I got the mtb frame new for 81.00 and the two road/tt frames for 150.00 each. You just need to price out your components and deciede that if buying them and a frame is cheaper than buying a prebuild and putting a few diff components on it afterwards.

Cost savings are tough but if you're good or lucky you can do ok. Example, on my new bike, I picked up a 1200 dollar frame for 300, transfered my existing components, got a discount on the bar stem and seatpost because I had a fitting done, and got free tires and tubes with my new wheels (free $120), the results are posted under "My New Fetish" if you want to see the finished bike

Ebay is the way to go. I only spent about $1,000 all total on multiple auctions for a steel frame Italian bike with mostly Campy Record and some centaur. It took me about 3 months to collect all the parts. The key as mymilkexpired stated above was getting a new frame for a small fraction of the cost. It was also a winter project so the parts were cheaper. Ebay will on occasion have Campy and Shimano group sets for a fraction of the cost of the same item from a local bike shop.

While I love my Campy parts, if I were building a bike from ebay again, I would probably go with Shimano since their parts are widely available and thus cheaper. Also, Ebay has a lot of Shimano wheel sets as compared to campy.

Before starting this type of project, you need to be exactly sure of the frame size. My frame may be on the large size. It works on the road but isn't perfect on rollers.

I haven't notice very many discussions concerning 'Home made' bikes. Aside from the obvious benefits of getting the components you want, what is a reasonable expectation on cost savings. Some descriptions of current projects and success stories would be interesting.


I bought most of my bikes and parts when good opportunities arose. It's not that I NEEDED it then.

Example on the framesets:
Calfee Tetra
MSRP: $1995, I paid $1200

Dean
MSRP: $1800, I paid $1200

Casati
MSRP: $1600, I paid $850

I have purchased the majority of bike parts from EBay and have saved a substantial amount of $$$.

Of my three bikes, only one was bought at the LBS. My roadie was picked up at local salvage store for $20...$400-$450 later...it's steel, it's smooth and very reliable...everything on it was picked up off Ebay...exc. for the seatpost, which was bought on sale @ Performance.

The two mountain bikes vary. The Schwinn has alot of new pieces. If you do your homework, you can come out alright...comparable bikes with the same equipment usually sell for $2000-$2500. I've invested @ $2200 so f ar... The GT All-Terra was obtained thru a trade...all the pieces for it are take-offs from the Schwinn or ebay...total so far is @ $200 and only likes @ $150-$200 more to be a complete bike...

And I'm not buying ole' junk either...if you do your research, you can find good parts at some killer prices...there's also ALOT of retail shops who buy big lots of stuff and throw em' on ebay to get a lil' push in their sales...

My no.2 bike is a strange conglomeration of parts. The frame is from an inexpensive late 80's early 90's Peugeot. This was a bike that I bought second hand before really getting into cycling. After wearing out all the original parts, crashing, requiring replacement steel forks etc. It was obvious just how good a fit & feel this frame is. A couple of years ago she was treated to a complete strip down and repaint and upgraded to Sora 8 speed with downtube shifters (I can't stress enough just how well this setup works!). Wheels were built up on mtb hubs for weather proofing with a nice set of Mavic CXP33 rims. A set of ITM Millenium alloy bars came to me very inexpensively.

OK, so the result is a 25 lb road bike, perhaps no great shakes, but she rides really well and is easy and inexpensive to maintain.

Cheers,

Ed