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.
Boxes and boxes of bike parts. I’m sick of buying parts!
Installing the Ultegra shift and brake levers
Both levers installed on the drop bars. Looking good!
Installing the bottom bracket
Installing the bottom bracket isn’t difficult, but you need the right tools for the job!
The best part about installing the bottom bracket? It means the cranks are next!
My living room is turning into a disaster area
The closer I get to finishing this build, the less I care about trying to keep my place organized!
It’s starting to look like a real bike now!
I still need to hack off that steerer tube and wrap the bars
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!
Finally, the bike is off the stand for the first time!!
It turned out pretty well, but I still have a lot of fine tuning to do before it’s inaugural ride
There she is, next to the bike she is replacing.
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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