Thinking about doing a custom bike...
Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 10:32 pm
Not entirely sure if it's worth it - but I love the idea of a hand built road / cyclo-cross bike in metal. Steel or Titanium (if I'm feeling spendy).
Can't really grasp why I want to do this - aside from the cool factor. But I love the idea of having a bike made to my measurements (which admittedly aren't that far off a 54" roadbike), choosing the color, choosing the group set, choosing the wheels. And then riding it almost all the time, and keeping it for life.
Right now I have a CF Trek Domane, an aluminum Marin Lombard cyclocross bike (that's a little too big), and an aluminum Trek Mountain bike. From what I hear CF won't last for ever - it gets tired, it fatigues. It's great out of the box, but there's a shelf life on it. Not sure how true that it - but I can see how it could be the case. CF, really, just being plastic.
Plus I kind of love the idea of a bike, built by hand, in the US. Even if you have to send more to get that.
Anyway, I've found a couple pretty awesome frames that I'd use as a base. Hopefully with it ending up something like this:
There's be some ability to do custom paint (within reason), for not much added cost. But I'm seriously wondering (if I go the Ti route), whether raw titanium isn't the best bet.
Can't really grasp why I want to do this - aside from the cool factor. But I love the idea of having a bike made to my measurements (which admittedly aren't that far off a 54" roadbike), choosing the color, choosing the group set, choosing the wheels. And then riding it almost all the time, and keeping it for life.
Right now I have a CF Trek Domane, an aluminum Marin Lombard cyclocross bike (that's a little too big), and an aluminum Trek Mountain bike. From what I hear CF won't last for ever - it gets tired, it fatigues. It's great out of the box, but there's a shelf life on it. Not sure how true that it - but I can see how it could be the case. CF, really, just being plastic.
Plus I kind of love the idea of a bike, built by hand, in the US. Even if you have to send more to get that.
Anyway, I've found a couple pretty awesome frames that I'd use as a base. Hopefully with it ending up something like this:
There's be some ability to do custom paint (within reason), for not much added cost. But I'm seriously wondering (if I go the Ti route), whether raw titanium isn't the best bet.