polymorphself 

And yes, let's be honest, you are. You're trying to achieve the same kind of bicycle, you're just doing it the hard way The other trendies just bought their Peregrines, Crosschecks, Romanceur or Atlantis, attached their rando bags and hit the trails Or they sent their frames to Gugie and had him do the same for them haha.

I definitely empathize with this journey and my comments and thoughts are just as much a reflection of my current thinking with what I want my bike experience to look and feel like. Over the years I've come to learn that aside from an appreciation of the history, it's not just the idea of a bike being vintage that attracts me. I'm attracted to vintage bicycles because I'm attracted to the lugged steel, the beautiful details, the simplicity and traditional geometry. At the same time I've also come to appreciate the idea of the bicycle that is versatile, practical and useful. I want it to carry things for me, be kinda fast on the road, be able to go off road, be able to be comfortable on long slow trips, and I want it to look like the beautiful vintages bikes that I've ridden and appreciated. To me this means converting older frames (lots of work and adds a lot of cost to what was an otherwise cheap way to have a beautiful and good riding bike) OR go with one of the above mentioned modern solutions that have the same construction method, quality and look but the added versatility.

This doesn't mean I don't want a few beautiful oldies sitting around for various kinds of rides. I certainly do and will. But if I wanted *one* bike, it would be as described above.