How hard is it to BUILD a touring bike?

Guys I'm unemployed and between jobs.... so went back
to school full time

Therefore money IS tight

BUT... I went out and bought a Novara Randonee for this
summer

I'm having second thoughts and may return it... not
only for the reason that money is tight.... but that
I'm wondering if I can build bike cheaper or if not
cheaper that is better somehow.

I know the frame is the heart and soul of a bike.... if
I bought a GOOD frame could I populate it with low
grade components for use this summer and upgrade when
back to work? I was even thinking I could use
components form a yard sale bike for now.

advice? how to get a good bike but do it in fashion
that makes sense given my financial constraints

I don't mind spending some money as gasoline is so high
right now I'm pretty set on bike riding EVEYWHERE this
summer.... besides just touring and for fun

On Apr 4, 6:18*pm, wrote:
Guys I'm unemployed and between jobs.... so went back
to school full time

Therefore money IS tight

BUT... I went out and bought a Novara Randonee for this
summer

I'm having second thoughts and may return it... not
only for the reason that money is tight.... but that
I'm wondering if I can build *bike cheaper or if not
cheaper that is better somehow.

I know the frame is the heart and soul of a bike.... if
I bought a GOOD frame could I populate it with low
grade components for use this summer and upgrade when
back to work? *I was even thinking I could use
components form a yard sale bike for now.

advice? *how to get a good bike but do it in *fashion
that makes sense given my financial constraints

I don't mind spending some money as gasoline is so high
right now I'm pretty set on bike riding EVEYWHERE this
summer.... besides just touring and for fun

What did you end up paying for the Randonee? $700? There's no way
you'll build something better for cheaper. I'll whup out my
spreadsheet with rough figures of the cheapest ballpark prices, and
you'll see. Alternately, if you're in a good market, used can be an
option.

So lets say you shopped the bare bones sales:

Nashbar frame 200
Sun/deore wheels 150
stem 15
bar 25
bb 10
headset 20
post 15
saddle 20
barend shifters 60
brake levers 25
brake cables 6
brake housing 10
bar tape 10
crank xd300 50
Platfor pedal 25
front mech 15
rear mech 25
tubes 10
rim strips 7
tires 30
brakes 30

So, going on $850 and you've not built the bike yet, and are using
some lesser quality componentry than you get with a complete package.
If you know what you want--build. I find it's usually cheaper to buy a
whole bike and swap out a few bits--that's if you don't have a bucket
of parts in the garage already.

When you adjust for inflation--that Randonee (or the Surly, even) you
got is about as cheap as a quality touring bike's gonna run. Prices
will only go up as the dollar goes down.

landotter wrote:

What did you end up paying for the Randonee? $700? There's no way
you'll build something better for cheaper.

Ok what abt building something better then?

IOW.... possible to buy a GOOD touring fame and put
junk components on it for now so that I can upgrade
later and have a REALLY good touring bike?

also...another option for poor person like me
maybe..... I have an old Ross MTB..actually pretty
decent frame ..4130 chromoly frame. I bought it used
from a friend for $25 who NEVER rode it. Looking at
it.... I'm wondering if I could use this frame and buy
some decent components and "make" a touring bike OUT of
it. Again the goal is to not send a ton of
money.....maybe less than $200 for parts?

I'm just kicking around ideas..... I'm really second
guessing the $700 for the Novara given my financial
situation. If I could make a touring bike out of the
Ross for $200... that gives me $500 for other gear I
don't have but need...clothing, tent, bag, etc.

Wrote:
Guys I'm unemployed and between jobs.... so went back
to school full time

Therefore money IS tight

BUT... I went out and bought a Novara Randonee for this
summer

I'm having second thoughts and may return it... not
only for the reason that money is tight.... but that
I'm wondering if I can build bike cheaper or if not
cheaper that is better somehow.

I know the frame is the heart and soul of a bike.... if
I bought a GOOD frame could I populate it with low
grade components for use this summer and upgrade when
back to work? I was even thinking I could use
components form a yard sale bike for now.

advice? how to get a good bike but do it in fashion
that makes sense given my financial constraints

I don't mind spending some money as gasoline is so high
right now I'm pretty set on bike riding EVEYWHERE this
summer.... besides just touring and for fun
Depending on your size, $900 total will bring you a Surly Long Haul
Trucker delivered to you. Not all sizes of the complete bicycle are are
available at that price, but some shopping will lead you to something
you can't duplicate.... or much improve on.


--
daveornee

In article
,
landotter wrote:

On Apr 4, 6:18*pm, wrote:
Guys I'm unemployed and between jobs.... so went back
to school full time

Therefore money IS tight

BUT... I went out and bought a Novara Randonee for this
summer

I'm having second thoughts and may return it... not
only for the reason that money is tight.... but that
I'm wondering if I can build *bike cheaper or if not
cheaper that is better somehow.

advice? *how to get a good bike but do it in *fashion
that makes sense given my financial constraints

I don't mind spending some money as gasoline is so high
right now I'm pretty set on bike riding EVEYWHERE this
summer.... besides just touring and for fun

What did you end up paying for the Randonee? $700? There's no way
you'll build something better for cheaper. I'll whup out my
spreadsheet with rough figures of the cheapest ballpark prices, and
you'll see. Alternately, if you're in a good market, used can be an
option.

So lets say you shopped the bare bones sales:
[...]
So, going on $850 and you've not built the bike yet,

Landotter is right, but both "me" and he skirt the most fundamental
choice:

cheap used bikes.

Do you know what important technology has changed on touring bicycles in
the last 20 years? None at all.

The very best sources for old, cheap, touring-capable bikes are 1)
garage sales/friends, 2) Craigslist, 3) used-bike shops etc.

Note that eBay doesn't enter into this, because we're looking for a bike
so cheap that the shipping costs would exceed the price.

Also, availability depends entirely on chance and where you are. Finding
early-80s touring/road bikes is easy in metropolitan areas or places
with a strong bike culture or a lot of population. It's harder if you're
in Montana.

If you can hit a lot of garage sales and have a few weeks to acquire a
bike, you've got a fighting chance.

Downsides to buying used bikes: you have to know what you're looking for
and at. You have to be a bit lucky. You are investing time instead of
money into your search. You will not find one. You will find too many,
and buy more than one. It will break. It will need TLC. It will have
been better that you had just bought new.

Not dissuaded? Good! Here's the key pointers to buying a touring bike as
nice as the Miyata 210 I acquired for $20:

-The only real, fundamental key to buying a used road (includes touring)
bike is to get one with aluminum rims. If it has steel rims, the chances
of being a decent bike in other ways is nearly zero.

-the sweet-era is around the early-80s. These bikes include the tail end
of the touring bike boom (look for cantis or standard-reach brakes) and
the middle of the peak of Suntour.

-Yes, Suntour. In the 5-6 speed era, Suntour drivetrains are the way to
go. Shimano didn't technologically surpass them until indexed shifting
(which depended on Suntour's patented slant-parallelogram design, and
which wasn't released until the Suntour patent expired).

-that's it. I don't know all the good brand names of the era, but Miyata
is a company that produced excellent touring bikes, but whose cachet is
not ridiculously high (unlike, say, finding an early Trek 520, or a few
of the other names to conjure with). In general, I think the Japanese
frame-makers offered the best value-for-dollar in this era, by mostly
building first-rate bikes at cut-rate prices.

-don't fear 27" bikes unless you have a wealth of 700c choices. These
things are shunned for their odd wheel size, but that odd tire is still
available at every bike shop on this continent, plus Wal-Mart. Also, the
rims are readily available, and dirt-cheap. I needed a new rear 27"
wheel after a bike crash, and the cost (with a sturdy rim) was $40,
available next day.

-at garage sales, start with the premise that no bike is worth more than
$20. If the vendor is offering the bike for $100, offer $10 and see what
happens. In the case of my Miyata, it was offered for $40 or so, until I
pointed out that the freewheel was spilling its tiny bearings
everywhere. This spectacular (but easily corrected) failure destroyed
the vendor's bargaining position.

-I have scavenged good bikes out of Spring Cleaning Week, paid $10 for a
Japanese Bianchi, paid $3 for a 1970s Motobecane tourer (I'd sell the
frame to you, but shipping...), and with the permission of a bike shop,
picked a pristine Nishiki up that was leaning against their dumpster
after the former owner failed to interest them in its purchase. Nishiki
later sold to a very happy new owner for about $100. These stories are
told for your inspiration, but keep in mind I'm pretty obsessed with
bikes and garage sales, and these represent the peaks of about five
years of scavenging. I'm happy if I pick up one really nice bike a year.

Now that you've got the bike:

-check and probably replace brakes and tires, because the rubber was bad
from the start or is deteriorating. The chain will be fine, because the
original owner rode the bike only three times.

-the arguable weakness of these bikes is freewheel rear axles.
Lightweights and light tourers never have problems, heavyweights and
heavy tourers can. Chalo has some insight on how to fix the design, and
swears by freewheel hubs and axles, but he does his own machining. For
the rest of us, my proposal is that you ride it until it breaks (which
may well be never) and then buy the cheapest freehub rear wheel you can.
The cheapest ones are heavy and have lots of spokes, which is what you
want anyways. In order to avoid upgrading your shifters to indexed, buy
a 7-speed cassette ($16 at REI) and a 4.5 mm spacer for your 8-9-10
freehub rear wheel. Don't forget a new chain.

-As it happens, the single slickest shifting upgrade for an old
friction-shifting bike is a Hyperglide freewheel or cassette. Indexing
is not necessary to take advantage of the smooth shifting of a 6- or
7-speed Hyperglide stack-o-cogs. Some of the Hyperglide clones are
pretty good, too. Also, the Mega-7 freewheels offer so much range with
their big MegaRange low gears that even a bike with only a double ring
can become a half-competent tourer. Your hills and fitness may vary.

I would budget $100-200 for this project, plus every weekend for a month.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

landotter wrote:
On Apr 4, 6:18 pm, wrote:
Guys I'm unemployed and between jobs.... so went back
to school full time

Therefore money IS tight

BUT... I went out and bought a Novara Randonee for this
summer

I'm having second thoughts and may return it... not
only for the reason that money is tight.... but that
I'm wondering if I can build bike cheaper or if not
cheaper that is better somehow.

I know the frame is the heart and soul of a bike.... if
I bought a GOOD frame could I populate it with low
grade components for use this summer and upgrade when
back to work? I was even thinking I could use
components form a yard sale bike for now.

advice? how to get a good bike but do it in fashion
that makes sense given my financial constraints

I don't mind spending some money as gasoline is so high
right now I'm pretty set on bike riding EVEYWHERE this
summer.... besides just touring and for fun

What did you end up paying for the Randonee? $700? There's no way
you'll build something better for cheaper. I'll whup out my
spreadsheet with rough figures of the cheapest ballpark prices, and
you'll see. Alternately, if you're in a good market, used can be an
option.

So lets say you shopped the bare bones sales:

Nashbar frame 200
Sun/deore wheels 150
stem 15
bar 25
bb 10
headset 20
post 15
saddle 20
barend shifters 60
brake levers 25
brake cables 6
brake housing 10
bar tape 10
crank xd300 50
Platfor pedal 25
front mech 15
rear mech 25
tubes 10
rim strips 7
tires 30
brakes 30

So, going on $850 and you've not built the bike yet, and are using
some lesser quality componentry than you get with a complete package.
If you know what you want--build. I find it's usually cheaper to buy a
whole bike and swap out a few bits--that's if you don't have a bucket
of parts in the garage already.

When you adjust for inflation--that Randonee (or the Surly, even) you
got is about as cheap as a quality touring bike's gonna run. Prices
will only go up as the dollar goes down.

Landotter got it right. I've penciled this sort of project out many
times - it's never cheaper to buy in parts. Do it only if the bike you
want isn't available complete. The exception is if you have a source of
dirt cheap (or free) used parts that make up a /major/ fraction of the
parts list. Even then, make sure they are all inter-compatible
(different frames require different spec. parts) before you commit your $.

Mark J.

In article ,
wrote:

landotter wrote:

What did you end up paying for the Randonee? $700? There's no way
you'll build something better for cheaper.

Ok what abt building something better then?

IOW.... possible to buy a GOOD touring fame and put
junk components on it for now so that I can upgrade
later and have a REALLY good touring bike?

also...another option for poor person like me
maybe..... I have an old Ross MTB..actually pretty
decent frame ..4130 chromoly frame. I bought it used
from a friend for $25 who NEVER rode it. Looking at
it.... I'm wondering if I could use this frame and buy
some decent components and "make" a touring bike OUT of
it. Again the goal is to not send a ton of
money.....maybe less than $200 for parts?

Yes you could. Do you have a rigid fork for it? Decide if you really
want to have drop bars or flat bars, and then just use whatever you can
scrounge or eBay or garage-sail.

I'm just kicking around ideas..... I'm really second
guessing the $700 for the Novara given my financial
situation. If I could make a touring bike out of the
Ross for $200... that gives me $500 for other gear I
don't have but need...clothing, tent, bag, etc.

Here's what I'm here to tell you: a touring bike ain't nothing special,
except reasonably durable and not so heavy that you hate riding it. MTBs
make great touring bikes, doubly so for shorter riders, who have
off-putting toe-overlap issues with 700c wheels. They don't need the
latest number of gears, brifters, or carbon frames to make them better.
They're just bikes with some good low gears and a sturdy frame.

This isn't to disparage new touring bikes, which are lovely to ride and
available at sensible prices. But if I was going touring, I would be
much happier cheaping out (within certain very specific constraints) on
the bike than stuff like the sleeping bag, tent, or even saddlebags.

Well, okay, I did find a set of Serratus bags at a garage sale for $25
one time.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

On Apr 4, 8:15*pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:
snip
-As it happens, the single slickest shifting upgrade for an old
friction-shifting bike is a Hyperglide freewheel or cassette. Indexing
is not necessary to take advantage of the smooth shifting of a 6- or
7-speed Hyperglide stack-o-cogs. Some of the Hyperglide clones are
pretty good, too. Also, the Mega-7 freewheels offer so much range with
their big MegaRange low gears that even a bike with only a double ring
can become a half-competent tourer. Your hills and fitness may vary.

I would budget $100-200 for this project, plus every weekend for a month.

Sure if ya got a starter bike, add a hundred bucks of bits and you're
on the road. Rigid mtbs are even easier to source than touring bikes,
which even in this city of a mill, are pretty rare to find cheap (at
least in a 60cm). Take a $15 thriftstore Rockhopper, upgrade it to
hyperglide for cheap, and add tires, trekking bars, and your choice of
accessories--and you've got an expedition worthy touring bike.

Got some square plastic buckets? Make your own panniers as well:
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?...oc_id=1841&v=v

On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:18:52 -0500, may have said:

Guys I'm unemployed and between jobs.... so went back
to school full time

Therefore money IS tight

BUT... I went out and bought a Novara Randonee for this
summer

I'm having second thoughts and may return it... not
only for the reason that money is tight.... but that
I'm wondering if I can build bike cheaper or if not
cheaper that is better somehow.

I know the frame is the heart and soul of a bike.... if
I bought a GOOD frame could I populate it with low
grade components for use this summer and upgrade when
back to work? I was even thinking I could use
components form a yard sale bike for now.

advice? how to get a good bike but do it in fashion
that makes sense given my financial constraints

I don't mind spending some money as gasoline is so high
right now I'm pretty set on bike riding EVEYWHERE this
summer.... besides just touring and for fun

First off, in my experience, a good-name older bike that can be had
for less than a quarter of the price of a current unit is generally a
much better value than a new bike, and a nifty-frame bike built with
third-rate new crap instead of decent kit will ride like a crappy,
cheap bike instead of a good one.

In your situation, I'd be looking for a respectable older bike with a
reasonably light frame and obsolete but good-quality gruppo that I
could take my time upgrading to where I wanted it.

In point of fact, I am doing just that with a Trek 640; sure, it'll
never be as light as a Madone, but I hardly think that the four-figure
difference in the amount I would have to spend is justified when my
riding isn't at the level where bleeding-edge techie goodness is going
to win me anything.

If your needs are mostly for transport rather than competition, and if
a given bike gets you where you need to go, then in the long run it's
probably good enough.

My recipe for a touring bike: Find an older roadie with eyelets, slap
on slightly wider tires and a touring rder and cassette, add
accessories as their need presents itself, and otherwise just keep
pedalling.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

requires mechanical curiosity finding out what to replace. replace
what wears out or gives problems. with what? MONEY! abt $4-500. like I
wrote: new tubes, saddle mods, new saddle. racks. theres a rack site
but ply over a good rack is best.
test-EG load rack on new TT and slalom. does the rack snap?
buy a Safari