What do i do?! building a bike

hbrashaw

So, i'm planning to build up a ragley mmmbop, but i don't earn much, being 13, so it would take roughly 16 months to finish (costing £1600 in total).
I could buy it bit by bit, slowly building it up in the corner of my room,
or i could wait until i have the full £1600, and buy everything at once,
or buy most things bit by bit, but put them on my current bike (just buy forks, frame and headset at the end).
What do you think?

mrfmilo

Buy it bit by bit.

Cferg

Bit by bit in the corner of a room, knowing that its there you can look at it in awe, buy the main components first, ie drivetrain then onto forks & wheels.

hbrashaw

buying it bit by bit is a good idea- i ccould have an epic your mtb's thread, and everything would be new when i finished- wouldn't be if i put the new bits on my current bike. But what if i find a better frame or something half way through, and wouldn't the components become outdated by the time i've finished?

Anonymous

bit by bit. If you can afford to splash £1600 in one go, you'd get a much better deal just buying a £1600 bike.

re-cycles

Save the cash, then hit the shops with a full wallet and shopping list. You'll get some decent discounts if you spend that much in one shot, much harder to haggle a decent price if you're only buying the odd bit here and there.

hbrashaw

good point yeehaa, if i bought a £1600 bike i'd end up changing so many things anyway it wouldn't be worth it- tyres, grips, pedals, saddle straight away probably.

re cycles- i'd do it online- better prices/more stock in general, and if i do it all at once, i can't wait for good deals/special offers to come up

dan shard

You're 13 and you get enough to save £100 a month!!

I dont know.. When I wer a lad....

bike-a-swan

You can't spend the money you've saved on beer (if you were me- sweets for you? What do kids these days spend money on?) if you're buying it bit by bit, but it could be a pain if you change your mind. Seeing something slowly put together in the corner of the room is very satisfying though. Perhaps aim to save, but if you're sure you know what you want and you see something on a decent sale, buy it as the opportunity comes up.

Anonymous

hbrashaw wrote:

good point yeehaa, if i bought a £1600 bike i'd end up changing so many things anyway it wouldn't be worth it- tyres, grips, pedals, saddle straight away probably.

re cycles- i'd do it online- better prices/more stock in general, and if i do it all at once, i can't wait for good deals/special offers to come up

Well, not if you bought the right bike, you mong

hbrashaw

no yeehaa, because there are certain components i want- charge spoon, lizard skins charger, wellgo b-54, maxxis minion etc. that don't come stock on many bikes. you mong

maybe save for 6 months or so, then start?

jay12

i bought my bit by bit. was the way to go. got some awesome bargains like 07 marzocchi am4 forks for just £77 is nearly new condition + loads of others. i saved for about 5 months, bought the frame, then chainset, headset + other bits. my biggest order consisted of about 6 things.lol

Anonymous

You might find you really like whatever's on the new bike though. It happens, a lot.

m00nd0g

I guess you already have a bike?
If it were me I would I would buy the components fit them to my ride.
Wheels handlebars tyres
Eventually my old bike is sitting in the corner in bits

pte1643

Bit by Bit I reckon.

If I tried to save all the cash I'd probably stumble across something else shiny in the mean time and spend it.

weescott

Bit by bit. Buy bargains as you find them. If you change your mind on the build you can sell bits as you go.

dan shard

In 16 months you'll be reaching 15, Believe me you wont be too fussed about mountain biking then. That £1600 will end up going on booze and cheap women. Buy it bit by bit, then you can sell it if you want to fund a binge, or if you turn out to be a bit 'ooh-err' you can still buy the bike

welshkev

i'm just building up a hardtail now, it's taken me about 4 months and i need to just get a new set of forks and i'm done. i could've skrimped on parts but i just saved up a little more to get what i wanted and when you're spending 20 quid here 50 quid there it doesn't feel like you've spent a lot

cee

yeehaamcgee wrote:

You might find you really like whatever's on the new bike though. It happens, a lot.

This.

I was always a fan of shimano over shhhhhhhhhram, however, sram was on my latest bike when i got it and wouldn't you know....i like that fine as well...

of course...the tyres were poo...they had to go!

ride_whenever

bit by bit, my white inbred took about a year to build up (mainly because i'm a tart and it took a while) but it'll give you an idea of what you can do with a room full of parts and things to do.

I found hanging it on the wall whilst it was being built made the wait much more bearable.

P-Jay

Save as much as you can until Oct-Nov-Dec when the sales start and spend as much as you can between then and spring when the prices go back to normal.

You never know, if you parents see how driven you are in the next few months, Santa may roll up with some bike tokens.

Good to hear some positive news about the youth of today rather than the normal hoodies/chavs/pregnant at 13/ underage drinking stuff the papers seem to say all teenagers are like.

mea00csf

welshkev wrote:

i'm just building up a hardtail now, it's taken me about 4 months and i need to just get a new set of forks and i'm done. i could've skrimped on parts but i just saved up a little more to get what i wanted and when you're spending 20 quid here 50 quid there it doesn't feel like you've spent a lot

This, figure out what you want and buy bit by bit searching for the best deals as you go. I did this and saved LOTS of money. I bought from obscure online stores that i had never dealt with, whichever had the best deal, (using a credit card tho!) and had no problem with any of them.

miss notax

Yep, bit by bit

This is what i've done with my new bike - i've got some super deals, got some stuff off Ebay etc and I reckon the bikes come in around half price. Buying everything at the RRP would have cost me £3k+ but with a bit of clever buying it's cost me about £1,600 8)

And I agree about the bike not having everything you want - I could have got a new Orange from a shop for less, but it wouldn't have the all the tarty stuff that i've always wanted on it!

Good luck!

hbrashaw

thanks everyone, it looks like i'll do it bit by bit, but wait a few months first, get frame, then forks at christmas, cranks around feb, then wheels, shifter/mech, then brakes last and cheaper parts in between. i've already decided the spec and everything, really excited!

Raymondavalon

I currently own 3 bikes myself and am building a 4th
It's my first build and so far I have about 50% of what I need. I am in no hurry and my target for the build to be complete is next spring / summer

I've saved over £200 on the forks (RS Revelation Race 150mm/U-Turn) by playing the waiting game. I expect components to come down in price over winter, so I'll sit back, wait a little and save a small fortune.

Just my 5¢ worth on the issue

Ryan Jones

Why not consider buying a complete bike on the sales with all the bits you want on it, one thats scored poor reviews is best as they tend to hang about and you can get a cracking deal on. Plus flog the frame afterwards and get some money back and you're ragley will be to the spec you want (or better).

It must be worthwhile look on ebay for the amount of small shops stripping bikes down and selling them in bits as they're worth more like that

CowboyBob

I bet you could hit ebay for ALL your components for less than £1600.

But when I was 13 yrs old I had a BMX that cost about £100 and I had a blast. Unless you are the next Armstrong I would get a decent hack about bike. Being 13 you will grow out of it quickly. I might get nicked or if you are like me you will crash it a few times and repair bills will be high.

What kind of 13 year old gets £100 a month? Where you paid off by Michael Jackson after a sleep over?

If you want bling buy Lloyds shares and in 5 years you might have double or tripled your money.

£3k-£4k can buy an 18 yr old a lot of bikes, beer and loose women.

hbrashaw

cowboybob, i'll just explain where £1600 in 16 months is coming from I get £11 a week- £6 sunday paper round, £1.50 pocket money and £3.50 for cycling to school (bus is £7 a week, so my parents pay me half of what i save them) that's about £825 in 16 months, and i get £150-200 (if i just get money) each christmas/birthday (rich grandparents 8) ) and i've got 4 of those in the next 16 months, so that's another £700, and i've already got about £100 saved up. so that's where the money's from- i'm not selling drugs or anything! (and i'm 14 in a month btw)

I won't grow out of it either- i've got an 18 inch frame at the moment, and i fit that fine, but i'm going to get a 16 inch on my build, and i've asked a few people who have it, ones 5' 10 with a 16 and he's fine, so i doubt i'll grow out of it. I'm not going to crash it either, i normally ride within my comfort zone and i only weigh 45kg atm so i'm not going to be breaking it, and i'm not going to leave it any where, so it won't get nicked- it will either be at home, i'll be riding it or it'll be on the roof of the car, so i'm not worried about it being stolen, but thanks for your concern cowboybob.

thanks for the advice raymondavalon.

hbrashaw

and ryan jones, as i've said before, many complete bikes don't have the coponents i want and i'd end up spending what i originally bought the bike for in upgrades (which i have with my current bike) and ones which don't score well aren't normally very good. i will look on ebay for some parts particularly forks as there expensive.

Anonymous

I still reckon you COULD find a bike with everything you want on it. And at £1600, chances are the big companies are going to get everything at least as cheap as you are.
I mean, strip a bike down into it's component parts, and it's hard to price all those components up, at the price of a full bike, most of the time - with notable exceptions of course.

hbrashaw

ok then, please can you find me a trail/am bike with sram gears, 1x9 or 1x10, charge spoon saddle, wellgo b-45's, 750mm bars/50mm stem, forks with 20mm maxle or fox/marz equivalent and travel adjust, and it has to be less than £1600 and weigh less than 28lbs