After lurking around Craigslist, eBay and the marketplace here and not finding quite what I thought I wanted, I began warming to the idea of going full modern steel bike - something that would represent a truly large jump in performance and clearly delineated additional functionality for this, only my second bike.

I had kind of set my sights on Soma's Smoothie or ES frames - fairly performance-oriented but with eyelets for racks and clearance for 28-32c tires.

But while looking I ran across this Jamis Quest frameset and headset for sale on the forum for $130, and though the sloping top tube is a bit of a compromise looks-wise it did offer a lot of possibilities with Reynolds 631 tubing, full carbon fork, women's specific geometry (shorter top tube yay!) and stable relaxed geometry.


So I bought it and am now slowly assembling parts for it. Yes it is true that building a bike is more expensive than buying a complete one but it satisfies certain itches for me, and hopefully the gradualness of the process will forestall the inevitable N+1 a little longer!

Planning to powder coat the frame. I've already collected a take-off full Ultegra 6800 group with compact crankset and Bontrager WSD VR-S drop bars for a little less than $500 from my LBS where I'm consigning my old Jamis.

So for now I am sad to leave the C&V forums and continue my build on another forum, but I will no doubt be back to take advantage of all the amazingly helpful information and tips you all have offered for the next bike! And I'm keeping all of my Craigslist alerts on!