Satisfying afternoon

[Paul Drawmer]

For me an expensive bike is £300. And I know I could buy a pretty good s/h one for that. However, I've spent the afternoon building up a bike from reconditioned/new parts acquired from Wiggle, Chain Reaction, High on Bikes and eBay.

It's nothing special, just an old Trek 1000SL that I've had powdercoated and putting some Mavic wheels on it. But I've had a really good afternoon, pottering about fitting up the headset, bars and stem, and getting the brakes on etc. I'm very fussy about cable runs, and bearing fit etc. Much less exacting than building a kit car, but very satisfying just 'getting it right'.

[Gizmo!]

Out of interest, how much did the rims cost you?

I was pondering buying an old Peugeot racer (to save it from the singlespeed skinny jeans crew) and putting modern rims and brakes on it, but the only rims I could find would have been twice as much as the bike...

[Paul Drawmer]

I bought these - but the Shimano hub version
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/mavic-aksium-clincher-whee...

Waaaaay better than any previous wheels I've had. And I've gone bling and fitted Vittorio orange tyres as the frame is orange!

Compared with much of the stuff on here my bikes are very low rent, but at 65 I'm not exactly a fast rider!