HOW DO YOU BUILD YOURS..?

[WandsworthRouleur]

I’ll ride any bike I build, so will only get NOS if it’s cheap. It’s rarely cheap!

Mostly, I get an itch to scratch and look to buy something. I don’t have much patience, so will buy the first reasonable condition thing I see here or on eBay.

I’ll then degrease and polish what I can. Get it into the bst condition possible without going all out on re-powder coating. I like some patina!

I’ll ride it and enjoy it, but then I’ll start looking for things that would take the build to another level. Right now, I quite fancy a red X Lite stem for my Pace. No hurry though...

The next itch to scratch? I always fancied an original GT LTS. Judy DHs, M900 XTR, Kore or Syncros bits. Mmmm...

 

[sinnerman]

Re:

I enjoy the polishing of old parts, hate the bottom Bracket, seems i never have the right size.

:facepalm:

 

[MR OX]

Re:

Still finding my feet on my own builds. I rebuild a fair few strays & re-home them rather then see them binned. With My own stuff I kind of struggle, I have a few build boxes as I never seem to find the framesets, so they never get built. My current rebuild (my old Orange) is hopefully going to be a bit more educated & sympathetic to the battered old frame. Really looking forward to getting it done. I'm getting into cleaning & I've been looking at bench grinders I still hate painting things!

 

[Mike Muz]

Re:

Personally, I look for a frame/set and build up from that. Looking for parts from the same era. Trying not to use v brakes when cantis were original, 8 speed when 7 was the right number.
I polish up some things, mainly XT M730/4/5 stuff. Only need to wash the bike and oil it up after rides. I don't seem to have any problems with polished bits fading, so to speak

 

[TOMAS]

Get an itch to scratch, scour web looking for a used frame/Bike that I wanna do thats normally reasonably priced, built it up 'rough' with quite a few parts I have laying around (mainly diffo length/rise stems, bar widths etc), layback on post etc to get the 'fit' right and then re-strip, clean and start building...

Generally I too like to pick stuff from the same year or as close to as poss, I'm also a stickler for having the entire same groupset on a bike (I think I nearly have every groupset Shimano released between '92-'98 on my bikes). Must admit I've started polishing/waxing frames - its amazing how much muck you can fetch out of 'clean' paint with a polish, makes them look brand new and then a wax to seal it all.