bikemig 

I'm curious how often people here build bikes and why. By building a bike, I mean stripping it down to the frame, dealing with any rust/paint issues, replacing all the consumables, and installing the parts that I think the build needs to make it pop. I enjoy thinking my way through a bike build and finding the right parts. Obviously if a bike is all original, you may not need to track down any parts.

I find that I tend to build a bike a year that I then ride a lot and take to a few events. I always more bikes than I need in the build queue and sometimes I'll build more than a bike in a year. I don't tend to pay much for my bikes; I'll seldom pay more than $200 and often less. I have a bad tendency to pick up interesting bikes when they pop up locally.

Three years ago I built up a 70s Fuji Finest and rode it a lot. Last year I built a 1979 Trek 510. It was my pandemic build. This year I am building a 70s era Mercier 300 that I plan on doing some long rides on once the weather cools down. I recently picked up a 1973 Raleigh Grand Sport that I'll likely build next year. For me, building a bike is a lot of fun but it is also about a tool that I plan to use on some hard rides. That's why my bikes tend to have wide ranging gearing as I want to be able to ride them over 15-20% grades. For me building a bike is all about the experience of working on a fine machine that I plan on using.