I’ve finally decided to sign-up instead of just lurking around. I’m Daniel and I live in Melbourne. Being a teenager and being a cycling enthusiast I have finally decided to build my first bike from scratch. Currently, I’m riding a rode bike, which I am forced to commute on which I’m not a fan of. Thus, I am building a fixie.
Now to my question… As mentioned, I’m in high school and broke so I’s curious if you guys know of any places that sell secondhand quality parts. I’ve decided not to buy some cheap shitty reid bike and build a bike that will last. I’ve already managed to get a sugino crankset, cinelli stem (quill) nitto bullhorns and a dodgy frame I found.
Im hoping to spend a further $400 on parts or is that a little conservative? I’ve been scanning gumtree often to see if I can pick up any deals.
P.S you’ll probably find me hanging around the buy and sell section a lot
You’ll have to spend a lot more than $400 for even moderately reasonable parts.
And by the time you’re done, or soon after, you’ll probably decide that you want something different anyway and you’ll want to start again or change more parts.
The best thing to do for a first fixed bike is to buy the best OTS bike you can afford and ride it a lot. In the process you’ll figure out what you want in a bike. Then you can build a better one later.
Loads of people say “I want to build a bike to last”. Most people swap things around and buy more bikes and end up selling the one they were going to keep for life.
Yeah. What Snowflake said. Buy a brand new off the shelf (Cell, Fuji Feather etc).
Or if you have the tools, some skills/wanna learn and wanna tinker buy a complete 2nd hand bike.
Both will be cheaper, better and get you going right away than building up from an old road frame.
Whether a 2nd hand bike will be ‘better/cheaper’ depends on the deal and your knowledge to look out for potential issues, parts that need replacing (tyres, chains, brake pads, bottom bracket etc) and your skills to fix problems, generally if you have to take it to a shop for any major work/parts a 2nd hand bike will end up more expensive.
Yea pick up a complete second hand bike of some sort and slowly upgrade while you’re up and rolling man. I was a broke student when I started riding also and I found just getting rolling and not being too fussy paid off, as I met other people that had bits and pieces and you can buy / trade / borrow bits and pieces off each other. It’s the only way while you’re not earning.
I think that’s just down to personal preference. If you’re not too sure what you’re buying you’ll be better off buying new and having the peace of mind that it all works.
You could probably get a ‘better’ bike secondhand for the same price but not necessarily, and ‘better’ means nothing becuase we all want different things in a bike.
But be aware that most of the time you won’t really notice the difference between OTS and better quality stuff when it comes to things like cranks, bars, seatposts, stems, etc. For the beginner they all do the same job.
The only kind of exception I think is wheels. Decent wheels are generally very noticeably better compared to cheap low end wheels.
Seconded on the above advice. You’ll be wasting your money. Buy a $200 Cell and save the other $200. You can spend that on parts or a frame down the track… or a dictionary.
To the OP: if you read all of the other threads the same as the one you started, you’ll see that 80% of FOA will advocate the above approach. Doesn’t mean it’s right, but it’s smart. It’ll save you money and time, and you’ll have a bike to ride.
As someone who went down the “I’ll get shitty frame and buy some wheels and do it up” path, I sure as hell wish that cell fixies existed at the time. So much wasted time/money/frustration on that POS.
The CELL, which I have thrown support behind a few times (the bike, not the staff, the less time you spend in that god forsaken shit hole of a store the better [if in Sydney, at least]), is modern, kinda ugly and ultimately, heavy.
Your other option would be to skip the fading, withering tail end of the fixie phase, and either buy:
a) retro-high end road bike, pref. Italian of Australian made, Reynolds/Columbus tubing, high end groupset. Which can sometimes be had for ~$400 on gumtree/ebay.
b) quill stem track frame, as per above (a)
c) modern road bike, with all modern accoutrements, spend lots more time saving.
d) modern track frame, as per (c) in regards to saving.
e) go straight #ontrend and buy a CX bike. Vintage or modern.
F) Once you get trading access buy Erle’s Michalo single speed roady, (if you fit a 53/54cm frame). Its better quality both in frame and parts than the vast majority of bikes you’d get for $500.
Thanks Guys,
I think I’ll leave building a bike for now till I can build up enough funds to make a SOLID bike.
But for now, have any of you guys had any experience with the Mercier kilo TT. I’ve read good stuff about them on Bike Jerks before their website lost its funding.