Originally Posted by Istanbul_Tea
Not meant in any negative way at all RegularGuy but...
Isn't this a bit like the old adage... polishing a turd? Why not put the time & money into one of thousands of great, reliable steel framesets that litter the Net and real world...
I can understand budgets and the like but for nearly the same amount of money-a bit more/a bit less if you're lucky-you could be doing this build on a steel Miyata, Motobecane, Trek, Dawes, Jackson, etc frameset with time-tested geometry and more importantly, quality tubing and quality welds.
No offense taken. Of course I don't expect a lot out of the frame, especially not for what I paid. I'm just having a good time building a bike. We'll see how it rides when I get it built up. The welds, though ugly, are plenty sturdy.
I looked for a while for a decent frame. The Surly LHT was tempting, but was still $250-300 more than the Nashbar. I didn't want to go used, since the older bikes out there are generally spaced for a 130 mm rear hub, and set up for a threaded headset. I was genuinely curious to see what kind of frame 137 U.S. dollars would buy. The biggest problem I've found with it was the ovalized seat tube.
As I said, once I build it up, if I don't like it, I should be able to sell it and get my money out of it.