For less than 100 I got a 53cm frame, specialized fork and headset, and sugino bb. What do you guys think? I've been searching craigslist for months and picked up a bike, found it was too big, and ended up selling it. After seeing countless bikes having rust issues or being out of my price range, I decided I might as well put in the extra money to build one myself that I would like and learn how to do almost everything myself. I mean I probably would end up wanting to swap out some of the parts on the road bike anyway.

But seeing how I'm building this bike I'm probably going fixed. Any recommendations on how to keep this build under 200 bucks (excluding what I already put in)? Thanks in advance.

keep browsing craigslist and the forums. getting the rest new for under $200 is going to be next to prove extremely difficult. offer trades, go to bike swaps, etc.

nice find btw

buy other bikes, part them, resell the left over

Sell your frame for a hundret bucks and get something from BD.

Lol.. well I posted it for sale just to see what offers I get. I'd get a motobecane track off BD or else I'll just work on this. I don't mind either way.

I also got a pake frameset for around the same price and managed to keep the whole build under $400. i would do what hamfoh said. and go to your local co ops and see what they have. and often times a lot of the LBSs have old parts that they just never sold and might be selling for real cheap, just ask about them and you may be able to get them for wholesale price. i have also got some good things from the local schools around here from bikes that are left on campus and are forced to be removed and stored in the school.

with your nickname...this is the advice you give???

With his budget,yes.Building from scratch is great, but unless one is willing to spend some money it is going to take forever to get semi decent parts or the bike is going to end up a clunker with ****ty parts for the same money as a BD bike.A wheelset is going to eat up most of the budget.Finding a used one with trackhubs is not that easy and a super cheap one is usually beat to hell.Anybody looking to build on a budget should go the conversion route.