A road bike, built on the super cheap, is it possible?

[geordieracer]

As the title says really, I'm wondering if anyone has done the whole road-bike on the cheap thing before.
The reason being, I desperately want a road bike, but have no viable way of purchasing one whole, everything on ebay seems to go for silly money, even the small frames that'd fit me (All the cool kids want the older cheaper frames for Fixies apparently!) so the only way I can see to do it is to buy the parts as and when and build it myself. I've built both my mountain bikes, but they have been very cheaply built and yes, I find myself living by the theory of buy cheap, buy twice, but hey, I enjoy myself until the parts disintegrate!
So, has anyone D.I.Y-ed their road bike from scratch? And very cheaply, it is possible, or am I pipe dreaming and should keep the slicks on the single speed and keep on lusting!

Cheers!

[spikeyhead]

ebay has too big an audience, keep an eye out in local shops and papers for adverts and you may get lucky.

[sjg]

How cheap is cheap? I sold my first roadbike (a budget Edinburgh Bicycle Co one, Sora gearing, etc) for £100 via the singletrackworld classifieds. I imagine something similar could be found with similar trawling - but as said, ebay has too much exposure and people getting carried away.

Decathlon do brand new from £270 - my gf has one of their bottom-of-the-range road bikes for doing triathlons on and it's fine for the money.

[Roman]

Much cheaper buying a complete secondhand bike if you're looking to spend up to say £250. You should get a reasonable aluminium bike from a less prestigeous/trendy brand such as Claude Butler, Carrera, Raleigh, Sarracen, Dawes, or possibly even an Italian Coppi for under £200.

You could get a cheap frame & forks but you'll quickly go over £100 on a few small bits like headset, bottom bracket, tyres, cables, pedals etc.

[esuuv]

Supermarket ads - the little card ones, somnewhere by the tills usually - people are always selling bikes cheap there - much less of an audience than ebay.....

[princeperch]

How much do you want to spend?

[darkyoung1000]

Cheap steel framed racing bikes with downtube shifters can be had for about £25 if you're lucky (Kellogs Edition!). They'll probably need new tubes & tyres (and possibly cables) but apart from that will be ready to ride.
If you don't fancy building it up yourself, keep an eye out for a local bicycle salvage place that re-furbs them.

Keep it local though rather than eBay as has been said before....

Cheers,
Tom

[Hard-Drive]

Or try your LBS. My other half picked up a WSD Trek 1000, ally frame, carbon forks, carbon seatpost, half decent Tiagra gearing, Bontrager triple and finishing kit for £250 from their trade ins. We've spent precisely £0 on it since, cracking bike for the money.

[julianm]

These people are great & may be able to help with something more local for you -
http://www.yorkrecycling.net/index.php?id=84
assuming you`re a bit further up the A1. Occasionally have some top quality older stuff in, but to get started & enjoy the roads don`t worry about impressing/unimpressing fellow riders - just get out there & do it!

[Saddle bum]

A road bike, built on the super cheap, is it possible?

No.

End off.

Come to my Cycle Jumble 3 Oct, plenty of bargain bits.