I’m building a bike from scratch. Well not quite from scratch. The frame will be built by someone else, as well as all the components… So perhaps I’m assembling a bike from scratch is more descriptive of what I’m doing. My intention on this blog is to blog about the process from start to finish for the first, and whatever subsequent bikes I / my friends build.
Two questions come to mind: Why, and where do you start?
First the why. I’ve been biking for a long time, I bike for fun, transportation to and from work. I’ve wanted to be able to use a bike as my only form of transportation for a long time, including trips the the grocery or whatever. I live in MN so I also need something that can deal with the winter. I’ve also got a significant mental hurdle to get over on the winter commuting, its effing cold at 07:00 in January, not to mention the snow. My current bikes (a raceish road bike and an old mountain bike) are a lot of fun, but they don’t fit the bill for my utility / transport needs. I could probably convert the mountain bike into something that would work, but why convert when you can build from scratch, and maybe learn something in the process. So my plan is to build a commuter / utility bike that can take me from home to work, to the grocery store, to the home brew store, maybe haul a full carboy of homebrew and be able to deal with the snow. The other thing I want is a bike I can ride on tours and bike camping. Every year I ride RAGBRAI, and we plan to bike camp, so I’d like something that can handle this duty. Basically I want an all around bike that I can do anything with. Hopefully in the end I will be able to get by with one bike.
Where to start? I’ve got to select parts I guess. In the interest of full discolsure I’ve already done most if not all of this. The posts leading up to me building the bike will detail my though process about the parts I selected, and if anything came up during purchasing them I’ll note that too.
It’s worth noting just because I pick a part doesn’t mean everyone else has to love it. My reasoning is hopefully that the part will work for me, and be reliable through the conditions I noted above.
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