last good country

So, I’m building a new bicycle;

I have a bicycle, it’s a Trek from the ’80s and don’t get me wrong it’s a great bike. There are things I don’t exactly love about it, mostly the drop handlebars and the fact that it has all those gears I don’t use. Mostly, what bothers me is that I didn’t build it.

That said, I don’t know very much about bicycles. I’m in the process of learning, and I figure the best way to learn about all of this is to build something. Thankfully my uncle is a bicycle guru, and I have plenty of friends who are knowledgable on the subject. As a result, I’m telling myself I want to learn how to build a bicycle.

I’m going to be building a singlespeed commuter bike based on a Raleigh Technium frame. When it’s done, it’ll look something like this, but with different handlebars (maybe):

I’m not going to be able to do everything myself, though eventually I will want to know how to do things like true my wheels and all of that. However, I’m probably going to be spending a lot of time over at Rollin’ Cycles on 14th and other various bike shops.

I know that it’s popular to do fixies these days, but I really want to be able to coast. I haven’t decided if I’ll do a flip-flop setup or not, but I don’t really see myself wanting to ride fixed. I live at the top of a moderate hill, and while getting up it isn’t extremely difficult, going down would be a pain in the ass without coasting. I know I could get over that or whatever, but at this point I’m not looking for all of that.

I just want something simple and light that gets me where I want to go.

I’ll likely document most of the project on here, if only for someone else who wants to do the same thing. I’m excited, this should be fun.