Decent Frame/Fork sets on a budget?

[KennaughKickIt]

Hi,

I've made the naive/hasty/late night decision to build a bike. I literally have no experience in building road bikes, aside from putting the front wheel and seatpost on my boxed felt bike. Oh, and before you say 'forget about it you absolute nobber' I've already shelled out £120 on a new Shimano Sora Groupset, and as a skint graduate that's well past the point of return. Yes, I could always sell the groupset for a little profit but I'm as stubborn as a mule and very possibly dumber than one too.

I might be selling myself short, I stripped, cleaned, repainted and put back together my sister's retro mountain bike this summer, and it's working worse than ever.

Anyway, I've been scouring the interwebs looking for deals on frames and forks and thought I might exploit your knowledge. Or am I better off hanging on for the sales to really kick in? Not looking to spend more than £200 (for both frame and fork) as there's a chance I'll end up selling the bike (and will want to make some profit). I see Planet X often have some reasonable deals, but I also hear they can leave a lot to be desired in terms of customer service, anything better out there?

I welcome the abuse and patronisation,

 

[smokeysmoo]

Building a bike is not hard, but it seldom works out cheaper than buying one off the shelf.

New bikes are subsidised, or at least their components are which is how manufacturers can sell them at the price they do.

Try pricing up the components from an off the shelf bike and you'll soon see what I mean.

The advantage of building though is you can pick your components yourself and therefore tailor the bike to you from the ground up, but this will probably be harder to do on a very tight/strict budget.

You don't mention what sort of frameset you're after, sportive, racy, winter, touring etc, but have a look at the 7005 Audax/Winter frame at RIBBLE, it's a brillinat piece of kit, (I've had two), and you see little else on the roads round here once the weather turns crap.

IME it builds into a great ride whether it's decked out with guards or stripped back for a sunny spring day

 

[TheDoctor]

I'll second that - the Ribble winter frame is superb for the money.
Currently using mine as a flat-bar tourer, and it gets more use than all my other bikes put together.

 

[KennaughKickIt]

Thanks for the responses. I should have pointed out that I'm after a slightly racier frameset, but I'm open to a touring/winter option if the price is right. And yep, I realise it's unlikely I'll be making a good profit if I do choose to sell it, I'd have been better off refurbing a second hand bike for that.

I'll certainly check out Ribble, was going to buy my first bike there!

 

[Cyclist33]

Hi,

I've made the naive/hasty/late night decision to build a bike. I literally have no experience in building road bikes, aside from putting the front wheel and seatpost on my boxed felt bike. Oh, and before you say 'forget about it you absolute nobber' I've already shelled out £120 on a new Shimano Sora Groupset, and as a skint graduate that's well past the point of return. Yes, I could always sell the groupset for a little profit but I'm as stubborn as a mule and very possibly dumber than one too.

I might be selling myself short, I stripped, cleaned, repainted and put back together my sister's retro mountain bike this summer, and it's working worse than ever.

Anyway, I've been scouring the interwebs looking for deals on frames and forks and thought I might exploit your knowledge. Or am I better off hanging on for the sales to really kick in? Not looking to spend more than £200 (for both frame and fork) as I there's a chance I'll end up selling the bike (and will want to make some profit). I see Planet X often have some reasonable deals, but I also hear they can leave a lot to be desired in terms of customer service, anything better out there?

I welcome the abuse and patronisation,

Hats off for doing it I say.

EBay should be your friend. Shop around and look out for new other, or used but mint etc. Some great deals. Eg, I once got a pair of 150 quid wheels for 37 pound, local too.

I've got a few bits n bobs Eg saddles, seat posts if you find yourself after those..

 

[Fab Foodie]

Planet X Alu racing frames always look very good value, would be my choice. Otherwise the Ribble ( which is pretty racy anyhow - not a touring bike ).

 

[TheJDog]

Kinesis Racelight of some description. You should be able to get something on eBay. (There's a full Aithein build on for £520 at the moment, which is a darned good deal)

 

[Kestevan]

Dolan Preffisio - £199 (frame, forks, headset, seatpost). Builds up into a stonking all-rounder .

 

[adscrim]

Dolan Preffisio - £199 (frame, forks, headset, seatpost). Builds up into a stonking all-rounder .

This, I use one midweek and train on it in the winter. An excellent piece of kit for the money and racier geometry than my summer bike.

 

[Hacienda71]

I suspect the Dolan,The Ribble and a number of the other "winter frames" come out of the same factory and are basically the same. All that said they are very good all round frames. I rode my Ribble for a couple of years as a main bike before it was restricted to wet day duties.