I built a drop bar mountain bike and enjoyed the process of sourcing the parts as cheap as possible and building the bike. Then I rode it a bit, didn't really like the ride at all. The long top tube required a shorter stem and the low head tube required a long quill. Put these two factors together with aggressive cross country geometry and it just felt noodly and squirrely. I hope it works for you, but my advice would be to invest as little money as you can and ride it to see if it's for you. If you love it, then get the Midge, retroshifts, etc.