Originally Posted by
bikerbobbbb
Thanks for the info. It's more of a daydream idea I think. My current bike is aluminum, coming up on tens years old. If the frame cracks, I'm stuck for transportation that way, so I'd want a new bike asap. That would be the giant time crunch. When I thought of that I wondering what building a bike from scratch would involve. Sounds too expensive though, plus a lot of time, esp. for me.
If you didn't build a bike yourself, and wanted to avoid your local bike shop, what other options are available? I would imagine you can just order a whole bike online now, right? If I knew my frame size... Is that good enough? I already know what it's used for, how I'd ride it, details like wanting a basket in front which eliminates a fork/shocks, etc. This is the same question as for building a bike -- How do you know it fits/is a good match without actually riding it first? The easy answer is to go find one and physically try it out, but it must be possible to figure it out without doing that, right? What factors come into play? Is it just the frame size?
All of my builds start with finding a donor bike at a terrific (low) price. Then I look for a frame that I want. Some of the frames I find come in the form of a complete bike, but one without the component group I prefer. Sometimes I sell off the extra parts, sometimes I donate them.
Building a bike yourself is a way to spend a lot of money, way over what a similar bike used would cost. The more resourceful you are, the better off you will be financially.
I have had several aluminum frame bikes in the 25 to 30 years old or older. So I would not assume your aluminum bike is going to fail soon.