I looked into a couple of frame building courses, but most were out of my budget - ball park figures (from some fairly limited research) were in excess of £1000 to end up with a finished, but unpainted, frame. It would need painting and then all the bits - wheels, bars and brakes, chain and crank, bottom bracket...
Of course, there may be more budget friendly courses out there and I appreciate how the knowledge and skills learnt would be invaluable, but for me the initial outlay could not be justified :-(
As for hills, I actually quite like tackling the local hills on my SS. In fact, I often find them less of a strain than on my geard bike, and on club rides I can easily match the geared riders for pace up them. (Note - my local club rides tend to be 40-60 miles at 15-17mph average. My training loops are 30 miles at 18mph average). Granted, hills in Suffolk are no match for the ones in the Lakes, but our local lanes around here are far from flat. We tend to get long, gentle rises (2-4% for up to a mile or so) with the occasional cheeky climb of up to 15% for a few hundred metres. Like I said, not exacty the Lakes but on my geared bike I often find myself repeatedly changing down and down and down, losing momentum each time I change, spinning the legs like a deamon, and my thighs just burn out like that. I actually find it more "comfortable" under most circumstances to get a bit of a run at it on my SS and then just standing and grinding at a lower cadence until it is all over. My lungs might suffer a bit, but my legs have more in them at the end of the climb to get back up to cruising speed easier like this.
The only real conditions where my geared beats my SS is for very long, endurance rides and when there is any type of headwind or side wind to battle into. Hills will eventually end, but a headwind for an hour or two is too much for me on SS! I don't really want to faff about with changing to a bigger rear sprocket and gear down, just to then end up under geared on the tailwind leg. My current gearing of 48:18 is pretty much bang on for dashes into town, up to 50mile club rides and my training loops.
Again, just my 2p worth, and I accept others might think differently, but I hope it helps,
J