No, nothing to do with prostates or increasing rheumatism, yet.

But, I have always really, really enjoyed a new build. Days of fun with new parts, cutting steerers, trimming cables and setting up suspension bits.

This time around, despite not having the severe financial constraints of the past, I’m actually a bit stressed about it all. The problem seems to be my garage stuffed with perfectly working ‘parts from the past’ and my ‘new’ build is all about adapters between universal standards from the past.

IS mount brakes to post-mount. Setting up a new FS frame to cope with a double chain set. Hubs! 12mm conversion for old hope 9mm hubs. At least I have a pair of forks with a tapered steerer. Though I have an adapter for that…

This is all doable, and I’m glad that all the adapters exist. But next time new build == new parts (and a mass sell-off of older stuff beforehand).

Or is it just me, and I’ve lost my fettle mojo? Or do I need to embrace retro now?

Last bike was off the peg, just made way more sense than trying to limp along older parts to new standards. I also did a massive clearout and accepted that the prices would be bad but stuff has been well used over the years.

I’ve done swapover builds and they are just not that much fun for me, too much bodging and doesn’t deliver that new bike feel for me.

Not just you,
I recently bought a surly karate monkey frameset, to go with the exixting transmission and brakes i had in my spares box.
I thought the wheels off my old (2016!) bike would fit, but nope (boost), ordered some dt swiss wheels, same as the ones on my much heavier ebike, out of stock, so bought some hope ones instead.
And the chainset, nope, had to take the big ring off
And the front mech, nope, had to buy a new direct mount type, with the cable that pulls from the front
And the seatpost, nope, had to buy a shim for that
And the rear rack, its a bit of a faff to fit one to a karate monkey, of the 4 racks i own it was the last one that fitted.

Having said all that, the bike looks stunning and rides brilliantly, so it was worth it, i went camping on it sat night, it handled everything easily, even when i rode into a fairly innocuous looking puddle and it was axle deep!

As a serial bike builder I feel your pain, it can become a right pain trying to ‘transition’ a bike or set of parts into the new standards world. I tried to refresh my ageing Orange a couple of years ago and new wheels lead to new brakes then there were bars, stem etc. In the end I bought a new bike and sold what I could, it just didnt seem worth the bother.

Even a recent frame purchase has lead to hub and brake adapters and there will inevitably be some other thing that needs purchasing to get the lot to mesh together

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/have-your-say-on-the-ever-changing-bike-standards.html

Cheers chaps! So, all I need to buy is some new parts and I’ll enjoy this like it is supposed to be enjoyed. Hold my beer…

i bought an old frame for all my old parts to move over to to avoid this. Dipping my toe back into fullsus.

When i move to new standards ill probably just buy a complete.

PS. though I do note (and resent) that I have been snared by the evil plans laid in secret meetings with powerpoint slides and SRAM/Mavic/Shimano executives.

Plus of not buying new is you can end up with kit that you like and know works for you, rather than upgrading later. But it is a problem. I have decided to re-use some standard 29″ wheels in a Boost frame. The adapters are costly for small bits of aluminium, but worth it to make continued use of some perfectly good Pro 2 hubs. Other bits get overtaken bu trend though – all my old handlebars are narrow and I like wide ones now, seatposts are fine but once you’ve used a dropper there’s no going back, 90mm and 100mm stems aren’t going to get much use (maybe on a road bike?) And of course wheel sizes…

The trick is to keep the spare parts to bikes ratio as low as possible. Build for the age they were bought for, not the latest standards.

Hmmm, I need a new fixed road frame to take the forks I have spare…

Surely non boost wheels can be used in a boost frame with spacers (and possibly re dishing)?

This is normal. My £250 frame for a swap and £25 wheels turned into a £500 build.

Surely non boost wheels can be used in a boost frame with spacers (and possibly re dishing)?

Indeed, but you have to decide which mode of adaptation to go for (which involves difficult questions of copatibility with other bikes you have) and then source the right kind of adapter, then wait for them to arrive etc. Faff-free it aint!

build this time last year resulted in a load of new tools too. 🙄

Yes, it annoys the hell out of me too. Bikes are my hobby and messing about with them in the shed has always been part of the appeal. Whatever the motivation of the evil empire the result is that they are making my hobby less fun and that’s annoying.

PS. though I do note (and resent) that I have been snared by the evil plans laid in secret meetings with powerpoint slides and SRAM/Mavic/Shimano executives.

I think that’s the thing, it really does feel more like a plot hatched between the various bigger businesses to try and herd people down the “Just buy a New bike” every 12-24 months” route…

Which I suppose is fine in some other sports or hobbies but part of the appeal for me of bikes has always been the tinkering side of things and the interchangeability of parts is important to that, Boost (both Front and Rear) was never really needed, it’s clearly a cynical move after tricking people into buying 650b wheels a couple of years earlier in order to get them to do it all over again… I honestly think at some point they will just kill the market, when enough new golfers will throw in the towel as they realise that there’s no posibility of “Keeping Up” and the arse will simply fall out of it for Specialized/Trek/Giant/SRAM/Shimano…

I find it sort of encouraging that roadies still aren’t so smitten by discs, not because it’s a bad idea technically, but because it simply demonstrates to the companies pushing such things, that not all of their customers wil simply buy new toys for the sake of it…