Recently I've been wanting a new road bike that to ride to work on nice weather days. I wanted something that would be fun to ride yet not so nice that I wouldn't want to leave it shackled to a bike rack. So I've been cruising craigslist looking for a good candidate. I had a 2001 LeMond Nevada City that I sold last spring, and I've found myself regretting that so LeMonds were high on my list.

Last week I found this for sale:



The seller had clearly gone to some lengths to make it look like an ugly hybrid/comfort bike, but the green decal in the lower center hints at this frame's true potential.



It was the same size as my old Nevada City, and unlike the Nevada City it had a carbon fork. So I overpaid for it and had myself a project.

Initially I was thinking that I had all the parts I'd need to put this bike on the road, and I think that was technically true, but once I had it in my garage I couldn't talk myself into building it up with the motley pile of spare parts I had available. In the end, I could only talk myself into the wheels, tires, cassette, chain and crankset I had on hand and even the crankset, I decided, needed a new middle chainring. So step 1 looked like this:



Then I order some parts that I thought were worthy of this bike...



The parts arrived yesterday. Here it is nearly complete:



If all goes well, I'll have it on the road this weekend.