At the rediculous prices that people are selling rusty old road bikes under the auspices that they are "vintage," on craigslist, it might be cheaper to buy a new bike/ frame for me. I have been trolling CL for weeks and old junk keeps popping up for around $400. I have built several conversions pver the last few months and none of them end up working out for me. The last one I tried ended up having a French BB on it. Have fun replacing the TA cranks on that. I am considering a new frame or new bike because I am out of options. I am the lead volunteer at a local bike co-op and nothing that fits my size (5'9") comes through and on the rare occasion that it does, it's so rusty as to be on borrowed time.

The cross check frameset was on my list, but a Pake offers the same thing for quite a bit cheaper, at least for my situation. I have a cross check fork sitting around unused, along with some basic steel road forks, so a surly frameset would be redundant when I can buy a pake frame a lot cheaper and put my own fork on it.