Originally Posted by
RubeRad
LOL -- custom decals sounds pretty cool to me. Are there companies that do that cheaply? Like you send a pdf and $10 and they basically just click "Print..." for a special printer they bought, and mail it to you?
I was thinking of doing it through these guys:
http://doityourselflettering.com/bike-lettering.htm . A tad pricey for the bigger stuff, but it came out to be like 35 bucks to do the decals for both sides of the bike. I think there are places out there that do CNC vinyl cutting as well, who would be able to do what ya suggested with the sending them a design to cut for you.
I have a friend that recently made a frankenbike out of parts he had laying around, turned out pretty cool. He made a SS 69er, with a 26" back wheel, and either a rigid 29" fork, or a suspension-corrected 26" fork, to hold a 29" front wheel. Can't remember how he had the brakes set up in the end (disk+rim? rear rim only? front disk only?), but it was pretty slick.
That's pretty sweet. I think it's a great experience to build your own bike, makes it have that little bit more sentimental and is a great way to learn a lot of bike repair concepts. Before I built my mtb, I knew how to put on a tire and that was about it. Now I can do pretty much everything from servicing my hubs to tuning derailleurs, excluding installing a star nut, and that's just cause I couldn't figure out a way to ghetto rig a tool out of crap I had laying around
All those skills really come in handy when you do something foolish like fall in a river, too. I imagine I would have had to pay upwards of $100 for a shop to pull apart and dry/regrease everything last time I did it, but thanks to my experience building frankenbike all I had to spend was a few hours of my time