lord_athlon

Question about rules:

Lets say you bought a bike for the purpose of its crankset and wheels for a different bike, before this years contest started.

How will that affect the outcome of parts value on a bike? Do you actually have to sell the parts to someone else, or can you sell them to yourself if you value it below FMV?

D1andonlyDman

I believe I have the appropriate idea of how to deal with this issue - see my post in the Cinderella Makeover thread. IMHO, you can, assuming you either sell the parts, or plan to use them yourself on a different build, value them appropriately, up to the point where they zero out the acquisition cost of your starting point, but not beyond that, which would give yourself a negative valuation at the starting point, and thus allow for guilding the lily on the Velo-Cheapo build.

Profit you might make on an acquisition from parting it out, should not be factored into the starting point here - other than to get you to a zero-basis for your starting point, but not below zero.

lord_athlon

I saw your post over there. That's why I wanted to ask in the official thread.

Narhay

When discussing parts for the clunkers I made a rule that I thought worked.

If you use a part, add the market value of the part to the build. This way, anyone starting with the same "find" with or without a huge stock of parts would be able to duplicate the same build path.

edit: typo and I see there is the rule discussion thread. Sorry.

devinfan

Well hey, now I have something fun to do with my $60 (I shouldn't be punished for being nice, it's worth about $20) Garin Tour Olympique. Starting point:

iab

If rule minutia is the current subject, how important is the cost? What other judging criteria is there? How is the criteria weighted? Meaning what wins, a fugly POS that cost nothing or a gorgeous bike that cost $100? A non-ridable POS that cost nothing or something that rides for $100. Please note the dollar amounts I used are completely arbitrary.

lord_athlon

I was just asking because I wanted to be transparent. I didnt want to violate the rules. I was just excited to participate.

CliffordK

The final "decision" will be based on the polls. So, with that, anything goes.

I kind of got slammed in the voting last year , perhaps because it wasn't "vintage" enough, although I think my frame may well have been from the mid 90's, and parts probably covered at least 3 or 4 decades, and perhaps because some people thought I over-spent.

But, there were quite a few very nice bikes too and fierce competition.

By splitting categories, it will help keep one or two bikes from dominating everything.

uncle uncle

.......... and I'm sorry. Math isn't my strongest suit. Didn't mean to get you in trouble Lord. I love your bike and would be excited to clean it up and get it rolling. The velo cheapo posts each year are some of my most anticipated... seeing what people find, how well they clean up, and pushing themselves and their bikes to brave the weather and ride on. I've never thought strict adherence to the rules was even a requirement, as long as a good lie, I mean story, was given. I didn't even think "winning" was part of it, just participating.

iab

I didn't follow the thread but that hardly seems like much fun. Also seems very slanted towards active flippers. I am planning on building a cheap bike this winter for the fire roads around our cabin. I have the Milwaukee swap in December and the Madison swap in January to do some horse trading. But the endless discussion about the rules and the potential for getting insulted for "violating" the rules is a turn off.

btw, how much was "over-spending"?

nlerner

The point is to build up a bike and do it for cheap. The two concepts that seem important to emphasize are "build" and "cheap." Both are relative, of course, but the first includes creativity and inspiration and turning a POS into something decent (rather than just getting a screaming deal on a bike and declaring it done). The second is what seems to create anxiety. I say let the builds happen and the builders account for their costs in whatever way make sense and, ultimately, the final judges will determine how it all plays out.

iab

That's easy to follow. Should be the "rules".

D1andonlyDman

Honestly, I was planning on doing the build I did in any case - even without this contest. I had fallen into what seemed like a perfect candidate - my $10 Raleigh Technium frame that I found at the November San Diego Velodrome swap meet seemed to me to be an ideal excuse to see how cheap a GOOD, USEABLE hill-climbing road bike could be put together so that I could have something that I could leave at my mom's house for when I'm visiting her, which ends up being about once a week. It was only sheer coincidence that this contest got announced a few days after I had picked up this frame to do a cheapo but functional build that was already directly aligned with the stated purpose of the contest that I even bothered to enter.

But I will say this - the aforementioned "rules" did encourage me to be even more hard-over to taking cost out of the eventual build than I might have anyways. If not for the rules and left strictly on my own motivation, there's a good chance I'd have made a couple of choices that leaned toward more aesthetic attractiveness, but which would have incurred a cost adder of maybe $40-60 or so. The contest really got me to concentrate on just how much cost I could take out of the build without tangibly impacting the rideability of the bike I ended up building. And that's actually why I feel pretty strongly against bookkeeping gamesmanship that allow someone to really build a $200-300 bike but pass it off as a near $0 bike. What I want to see from this contest - not just for my build, but for everyone's builds that end up being educational and inspiring to the whole group - is just what can be accomplished with the goal of making a useful rideable bike for as close to nothing as is realistically possible. I know what I personally did - using parts that were gotten as cheaply as is realistic for me, and parts inventory that I already had, but which I valued at what I think it would cost me to replace them with comparable stuff also gotten as cheaply as is realistic - I build a good, rideable bike that absolutely met my goals for particular functionality - and it cost me about $130 to do it, before deducting anything for how much I'll be riding it. What I want to get out of the contest, is to see what other creative and knowledgeable bike geeks can do that's maybe even better than what I came up with, and see how what I did measures up to that. What I DON'T get any benefit from is seeing how much someone got from either actually flipping or pretending that they're flipping parts for the maximum value they could extract from them, for the purpose of pretending that the bike they build really cost $100 or so less than it actually did. That's why I think that it's bogus to start with a valuation point well below zero achieved by scavenging some premium parts at high value and replacing them with lower value but functional parts. If the starting point for the build is zero or more, it's a realistic barometer of what can be replicated by other people. If the starting point is set well below zero due to misleading scavenging of parts and down-swapping them - the whole exercise doesn't give the rest of the community any useful information.

crank_addict

If not for having many other projects (both non-bike and bike) going on, would have participate. Though I had fun in the $100 cheapo Velo a few years ago. The rules were great, definitely a challenge. I followed them tightly and also holding to what I define as real vintage. It came right down to the wire in the dollar limit and getting the miles in (even with a hiccup and busted crank issue) and achieved the goals. Post contest, that bike earned further vintage upgrades and one that I ride regularly. Matter of fact, I love the bike.

As mentioned, I won't participate but depending what the rules are and in the spirit of a fun group, I'll offer up some parts, gratuitous to whoever may need them for the contest build. First though I need to wrap up the current bike builds (or set the desired parts aside) and then will sort out the excess. We're talking 50's, early 80's whatever.

Funny now when I look at brand new Asian made bikes, ultra budget on the racks at big box stores. At first sight, its like wow... how do they do it, ship it and sell in the $150 range??? Thats comparable to maybe three tank fills of petrol in a piggy SUV...hah. Obvious the quality, weight, level of riding enjoyment is not worth discussing here but what is, being able to build a higher quality vintage lightweight for nearly the same amount.

Currently, my own little challenge and on target is completing a 1987 Trek Cirrus (520) with R-531 main tubes, Tange fork (frameset that came stripped of all parts) with my goal to complete and finish for under $200.

I'm suiting it up with a triple crank (SR Apex), wall climbing gearset (brand new Megarange $3), 960 cantilever's (gifted, thnx to Golden Boy), re-salvaged rusty junked Suntour Cyclone derailleurs, barend shifters out of another LBS junk bin freebie (Schwinn branded Suntour), SR bars and forged SR stem ( all cost $5) also included Aero-Compe levers, unbranded Blackburn clone rear rack, freebie 700c Ukai rims, like new freebie Forte tires 700x35c, Slime lightweight tubes ($10 for 2) Wallymart / Bell brand cable kit. Being way under planned budget, I may splurge for mudguards and NOS vintage lighting set that I'll modify w/modern LED bulbs (thnx. Rudi for the bulbs). Its going to be a keeper tour rig, but I'm having fun right from the start in the build.

Will follow this thread and good luck to all!


edit: Now that I recall, I purchased the SR bars, SR forged stem and Aero-Compe levers from Will (don't know his bf-AKA) for $5 at the Bartali event hosted by iab. Ha.... that swap time was a hoot. I think those of us just ended up giving stuff away, literally. I knew someday they would come to use. Cheer's ~

kunsunoke 

My current entry for this year's Tour de Merde - '88 Raleigh USA Technium Tri-Lite

jetboy 

the rules seem fine- and as long as people have fun I would not worry too much about the minutia- its not like one WINS anything other than fixing up a unused bike with cheap or free parts. I started mine in the other thread and I am trying to only use parts I found on the side of the road or the trash.. or some i got off "freecycle". this includes down to the tires & tubes, cables, housing etc. it made me convert the rear wheel to a disk brake (its a vintage disk brake!) just because that was the only rear wheel I had that was free.. and had a usable tube - something I would never have done if I was not trying to make the cheapest build possible.

the frame and some parts hanging on it was $25 - and i took some parts off for another bike. but I am happy to call it a $25 start and try and ride those dollars off!

CliffordK

What I'd suggest is allowing trading straight across parts for similar parts....

I.E. Crankset for Crankset, Wheels for Wheels, etc. As long as it is a conferable trade, or trading down, and the donated part is usable.

It becomes a bit complicated if trading for something different, and how different? For example trading 27" wheels for 650b with the goal of doing an expedition build.

Likewise, a drop to drop bar trade would be expected. But a drops to flats or flats to drops becomes a build choice, and one might expect eating the cost.

But, in the end, however your accounting seems logical will probably just be fine.

iab

Guess I'm out again.

I'm trading some handlebar plugs for a frame.

CliffordK

This may be out of your budget, but this showed up on Craigslist today. I don't have any info on it, but could probably facilitate shipping if necessary.

1 inch threaded Cr-Moly extra long fork (700c) - $95 (NE Eugene, Or)



It looks like several tall bikes showed up on Craigslist today.

clubman 

I think the rules are getting in the way of some people wanting to participate. That's just wrong.

It's called Velo Cheapo. How about this. The only rule is build a cheap bike, give a brief budget break down, anecdotal stories to enhance value, (Major Taylor once rode it), impress the judges with what kinda miles/kms you've put on it (Iditarod!) and said judges can make the categories up after the submissions. "Ugliest Italian Lipstick Award" comes to mind. Rules suk.

big chainring 

My fondest memory of the velo cheapo contest was Ivandarken 's $1500 PX-10. Velo-Cheapo gone wild!

I bought a Schwinn Traveller for $20 from one of the scavengers that travels the alleys around my 'hood. Dang nice paint, but the chrome fork tips are very corroded. Testors to the rescue! Gonna make a winter bike out of it. Need a theme. It's red. Maybe a Santa's sled winter wonderland elfin magic bike. Better get to work on it.

noglider 

You won't get away with just saying that and not explaining.

CliffordK

I'm not sure. I've decided to take on this Duchess project.
I'd probably be better off just trading the whole frame for a nice set of handlebar plugs

jetboy 

Duchess Duchess Duchess!!!

I agree- the rules should be just as clubman put it above: build a cheap bike, tell how you did it and then we all look and see what we like. I do like the miles thing as well as it forces one to make a bike that works, and not just looks good in pictures

iab

I don't know how to be more clear?

But it looks like I'm back in! w00t.