Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
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There are a few cool bikes I would like to have but the thing I really enjoy is the creative spark of taking a dumpster find and building it into something nice and/or unique. Basic frames allow me to do this on a regular basis and not break the bank and I can go to town with them without worrying about messing with period correct paint, decals, groupset aesthetics etc...
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A dozen years ago I picked up a trashed Peugeot sport frame (!~1989 internally lugged Reynolds 501) for $20 (hit hard by a car). Repaired it and got it on the road for another $85 and parts/wheels on hand. As fun summer fix gear, What a blast! Took me back to the bike I raced and loved. Most fun bike I ever rode. A year later I had it painted with "TEAM DUMPSTER" in block letters on the downtube and "Jessica" in script on the top tube.
3 years and 8000 miles later, I ordered a custom ti bike to replace it as I knew from day one Jessica was not a keeper; that she'd been hit too hard to ride forever. So the $500 Jessica got replaced by the $4000 Jessica J which is about to go through a small name change back to Jessica. (Name's getting painted on the fork blades. Jessica tapers, Jessica J doesn't.)
Now, in truth, there are a lot of things the new Jessica does very well that the original didn't. Corner. That Peugeot had the classic Peugeot low, low BB and scraped pedals just looking at turns with cranks so short my knees hated them. I would never climb a hard hill on it because I would have to come back down and I didn't want that frame breaking on a descent. And if I got the chain length just right I could get 2 whole teeth worth of cog difference on that really short dropout. The new bike can run from 12 to 24 without messing with the chain. But going down a straight road - that cheap bike was just as much fun as the bike that costs 8 times as much.
Ben