I have been looking to get a bike for the past few months and have been trying to learn about types of riding, components and what to expect. I have been explioring the option of building my own, but I really don't know if this is a cheaper route or not. If I bought an $800 frameset, what am I looking at when all is said and done with components that would compliment the $800 frame (XT/LX equiptment, hydro disc's, etc)? Having a lock-out feature would be great as this would also be ridden on the roads. Thanks for helping the newbie
Building a freeride/AM bike
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I've been trying to build a bike that is capable in both the FR and AM arenas. Right now, I have a Bullit with a Sherman Flick. I am planning to get either a 66 or 36van to add a little more height to the front end, but thus far, the bike is great. I have a little bit of trouble keeping up to friend's on XC bikes, but it's not bad. The bike is great for dirt jumping. I've only done one shuttle on it this summer.
Building bikes is a lot of fun, but expect to be patient and spend a lot more than a complete bike, unless you have a sweet hook up for parts. Do you have an idea of what kinds of frames you would like?
Good luck!
Building bikes is a lot of fun, but expect to be patient and spend a lot more than a complete bike, unless you have a sweet hook up for parts. Do you have an idea of what kinds of frames you would like?
Good luck!
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12,220 Posts
That's a hard question, because you might find the exact frame you'd like with most or all the components that you'd like all in one package. Usually for me, however, that's seldom been the case. I usually found that I didn't like the fork, the rear shock, wheelset, or other major components...either singularly or as a group. If you find a bike design you like and only a few of the smaller components are not to your liking, I'd grab it and replace stuff as needed or wanted as time went by. When the fork or rear shock are definitely not what you're looking for, it's a tougher call.
I've built two of my bikes so far and i have found that it is quite a bit cheaper building it yourself if you are patient. You need to be patient to look for good deals on parts, price matching on websites is always helpful, check, cambriabike.com, jensonusa, pricepoint, beyondbikes, and don't forget ebay. I have found that the complete bikes have either a mixture of good and bad components and a lot of components that i don't want. This being said, i get the bike with the parts i want and i probably save 25% on the bike parts, which has come close to the cost of the full bike, but again, i get the better parts and the ones i like. But yes, if you go out and buy all the parts at once that you want you will spend a lot more money. Good luck
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