Originally Posted by tacomee
As a question of value and getting the most bang for your buck.....often shopping for a new bike is the best option. Fuji and Jamis sell pretty good steel framed all rounders for $800 or so list price. The street price of these bikes is often much less than that.... you might find a 60cm bike for $600 or so. Not that $600 isn't a lot of money, it is. But you're getting a darn nice bike for that, and the projecting the cost of the bike per mile, over say, 5 years, it's a very good deal.
You're right of course. However, I have a decent wheelset that has seen only a bit of use (purchased for an earlier project). They are 36H CR18 rims laced to Alivio hubs with 14G stainless spokes...not the greatest, but I think they can take some punishment. I also have some new Deore LX front and rear dérailleurs, picked up cheap during one of Nashbar's sales. I have a 1" stem, bars, Suntour barcons, Shimano SLR brake levers, a barely used Deore LX crankset used on an earlier project, fenders that never made it onto another project, a rear rack salvaged from a garage sale find, an old seatpost, and a saddle from another project bike I'm stripping.
Thinking I would use this frame, I also bought some panniers, a front lowrider rack, some Continental Travel Contact tires, and a bunch of other stuff. So all I really need now is a frame. If I buy a new frame, I'll need a threadless headset, stem, seatpost collar, etc, which will drive my price up more. If I can find a good used frame, especially with a threaded headset, I'm pretty much set.
In all, I've spent about $400-$450 on the frameless build so far (including the price of the wheelset and some other parts which I bought new last year for a different bike).
So, yes, unless I can find a deal on a frame, I probably would have been better off buying a complete bike. But even then, I would want to change the tires, add fenders, add racks, buy panniers, and change the chainrings to lower gearing (why are some of these "touring" bike equipped with such high gearing on the front?). I might also need a new stem to get the bars higher.
You are also right about saving some money or getting a part time job to raise some. But I wanted to have this ready for early summer...and it's already here! So...my patience has reached it's limit. I must admit that I have been able to turn other garage sale finds into capital gains, but I've managed to blow most of that on a couple other bikes. I was set on finding an inexpensive, used touring frame that I wouldn't feel anxiety about riding in the rain or on trails. That was my rationale then...but it appears I've just wasted a whole lot of time and spent my money elsewhere!
At any rate, I appreciate the responses and the opinions on frame sizing.