lulubel
Über Member
- Location
- Malaga, Spain
After almost deciding what my next bike was going to be, I'm now in doubt again.
I've been doing a bit of reading up on steel frames, and I wonder if it might be a good choice for me. I'm not so much bothered about having the lightest, fastest bike as having a bike that I love riding, that's reasonably comfy, reasonably quick, tough and hardwearing, and will go on practically forever. I like looking at shiny, new bikes, but I'm never really interested in buying one. I'd rather have a bike that's a trusted "old friend" than the newest piece of bling.
The trouble is, I haven't got a great deal of money to spend, so a custom built frame is completely out. I came across Surly while I was searching, and like the idea of the "do anything" versatility of the cross check, but the frame geometry seems wrong for me - I've seen people say the top tube is on the long side. At 3kg for the frame and forks, people also say it's heavy. Is that heavy? (My complete old bike weighs 10kg.)
Then I discovered the Condor Fratello, which is nearly twice the price of the Surly frame and pushing the boundary of what I can afford, but the geometry looks really nice. The seat tube, top tube and head tube lengths on the smallest size are all within 5mm of the measurements I took today on my old frame, and the head and seat tube angles are within 0.4 degrees of the angles on the current model of my bike (I couldn't figure out how to measure the angles accurately on mine!)
The difficulty is, if I got the Fratello, I wouldn't really have any money left once I'd bought the frameset and a pair of wheels, so I'd have to recover cosmetically damaged parts off my old bike to make up a complete bike until the insurance payment comes through (which will take months at best because procedure here is that we have to go to court for it). I'm pretty sure everything is fine to use, but will I be able to fit my mixture of tiagra/sora/2300 onto the new frame? Is everything fairly standard? I know I'll need a new BB to fit the new frame, and I'd hope Condor would supply and fit that for me if I asked.
Building a bike almost from scratch with mostly used parts is a bit of a daunting prospect, but since I'll be taking them off the old bike first, I think that should make it easier to figure out what I'm doing.
If I'm going to do this, I need to be really sure a steel frame is what I want. I could just buy a 2011 complete bike, it would be a whole lot easier, and I'm sure I'd love it, but I wonder if steel would be a better choice for me and what I want from a bike.
Thoughts, anyone? What's good/bad about steel? Have I got some good ideas here, or am I just having a crazy moment?
I've been doing a bit of reading up on steel frames, and I wonder if it might be a good choice for me. I'm not so much bothered about having the lightest, fastest bike as having a bike that I love riding, that's reasonably comfy, reasonably quick, tough and hardwearing, and will go on practically forever. I like looking at shiny, new bikes, but I'm never really interested in buying one. I'd rather have a bike that's a trusted "old friend" than the newest piece of bling.
The trouble is, I haven't got a great deal of money to spend, so a custom built frame is completely out. I came across Surly while I was searching, and like the idea of the "do anything" versatility of the cross check, but the frame geometry seems wrong for me - I've seen people say the top tube is on the long side. At 3kg for the frame and forks, people also say it's heavy. Is that heavy? (My complete old bike weighs 10kg.)
Then I discovered the Condor Fratello, which is nearly twice the price of the Surly frame and pushing the boundary of what I can afford, but the geometry looks really nice. The seat tube, top tube and head tube lengths on the smallest size are all within 5mm of the measurements I took today on my old frame, and the head and seat tube angles are within 0.4 degrees of the angles on the current model of my bike (I couldn't figure out how to measure the angles accurately on mine!)
The difficulty is, if I got the Fratello, I wouldn't really have any money left once I'd bought the frameset and a pair of wheels, so I'd have to recover cosmetically damaged parts off my old bike to make up a complete bike until the insurance payment comes through (which will take months at best because procedure here is that we have to go to court for it). I'm pretty sure everything is fine to use, but will I be able to fit my mixture of tiagra/sora/2300 onto the new frame? Is everything fairly standard? I know I'll need a new BB to fit the new frame, and I'd hope Condor would supply and fit that for me if I asked.
Building a bike almost from scratch with mostly used parts is a bit of a daunting prospect, but since I'll be taking them off the old bike first, I think that should make it easier to figure out what I'm doing.
If I'm going to do this, I need to be really sure a steel frame is what I want. I could just buy a 2011 complete bike, it would be a whole lot easier, and I'm sure I'd love it, but I wonder if steel would be a better choice for me and what I want from a bike.
Thoughts, anyone? What's good/bad about steel? Have I got some good ideas here, or am I just having a crazy moment?