That Easy?
 

I have been looking, learning, searching for cheap ways into making a flip flop hub bike. I was thinking of buying one until my local LBS quoted 1299.00 for a Surly. If I wanted to spend about $500.00. I am thinking all I need is to buy new wheels, crankset and buy an old Raleigh, etc... with horizontal dropouts. All of which I can get off of EBay. Am I missing something?

you should be able to get an iro mark v, a bianchi pista, a raleigh rush hour, giant messenger, a specialized langster, a schwinn madison (coming soon), a windsor 'the hour' or one of the other mass-market bikes for around $500 or less.

$1,200 for a Surly?
Built up with what because that's ridiculously high.

Yea you can get one of those Mercier bikes off ebay for like $350 complete yea?