Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Finally there's the repair issue. You can go look around for a Bike Forum member's actual experience with trying to get a damage frame repaired in far off lands...China, actually...on the touring forums. Modern steel frames...and by modern I mean anything made since around 1975...are thin metal frames that require specialized skill to repair. Some guy with a welder in Outer Mongolia will be far more likely to burn through the material than repair it...which is exactly the experience that the poster on the touring forums ran across.
Generally people put too much emphasis on this repairability property... and by people I mean folks who want to justify buying steel. And it really depends on what kind of damage needs to be repaired. I've seen folks with pretty limited skills put a dropout back on a chainstay for example, and I suspect a Mongolian welder could rig up a rack or fender mount or something. But as far as unbrazing a broken tube and replacing with a new one... you've gotta really love your frame for that kind of repair bill, and you've gotta find a specialist in doing it.