Originally Posted by
lonesomesteve
Yeah, I suspect I'm a little more cautious about frame clearances than you are. I'm only running 42mm tires, but I like having enough room to accommodate some mud or a slightly out-of-true wheel on occasion.
It's best not to think about the slippery slope of cost in these sorts of projects. I bought my 420 for $100, but I've spent several times that amount on this build, and that's even with a lot of it being inexpensive but functional vintage parts I had lying around. Still, I can think of worse things to throw your money at.
That makes sense. I bought my 420 for half of what you did, and as all of us have seen, it needed
everything plus a ton of paint work. $100 if it was in nicer shape, for sure. Even then, another good chunk of money to run modern components, and I did well on them, price-wise. I know the cost of my 620 build, and I didn't worry too much about that as I had sold so much leading up to it and I had a precise vision that involved parts I had lying around--nice parts, but ones I've had for years--until the idea of DA 9000 got into my head. That's when it got a lot more expensive. Thankfully the money spent on it has been absolutely worth it, no internal propaganda needed on my part to make myself feel good/better about it. The 420 would be the cheery-in-winter sidekick that'd be a ton cheaper, fendered, all while exploring the 650B world. Little bit of fun (ok a good bit) and a little bit of R&D.