01. Introduction: Building my own cross bike
02. Assembly: Part 1
03. Assembly: Part 2
04. The inaugural ride and conclusion
This bike build has ended up costing me a lot more than I had originally planned. The total price so far is at about $2300, and I really didn’t expect it to be anywhere near that amount. The good news is that I’m pretty much done buying parts, unless my wheels and/or bottom bracket cause problems. The crankset is scary tight – it’s going to miss hitting the frame by just a few millimeters on both sides, and that’s only if the bottom bracket keeps it spaced properly. And what about frame flex? Is that going to cause clearance issues? As you can tell, I’ve learned quite a bit about building this cross bike so far.

The advantage to being single: there isn’t a wife or girlfriend in the world who would allow this sort of thing to happen inside!
Despite the minor issues, things are coming together well and I am almost done. Just a few minor things to tweak! I’ve never built a bike before so you can only imagine the sense of satisfaction I get whenever I add a new part and it works just as it should.
I laugh about when I first started this project. The goal was to spend about $1000, and build the bike over the course of 3 or 4 months. Yeah, right! I just got caught up in buying cool parts for it, and now it’s nowhere near the commuter I was planning it to be. Oh, it’s starting to become one heck of a nice bike though. But I’m not going to lie when I say that it may be too much to leave parked outside at the gym three times a week. Whatever. I’m just about finished with it and I’m very much looking forward to taking it on it’s inaugural ride!
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