So I’ve been looking for a suitable frame, or cheap donor bike, as a basis for replacing my Saracen Hack commuter bike as the frame is broken.
Been scouring classifieds, eBay etc for weeks now.
But prices seem a bit bonkers.
Eg, a ‘like for like’ replacement, a tatty Planet X London Road frameset just went for £150.
A tatty Inbred frame went for over £160.
Boardman CX, Hybrids, MTBs, even quite a few years old seem to be £300-£500.
Before lockdown, I’d expect those to have been significantly less; I struggled to shift a reasonably nicely specc’d full Inbred a couple of months ago, only getting £185 for it.
At those prices, something like a new Camino frameset at £300 feels like a comparative bargain …
So, unless someone has got something kicking around in their loft/garage/shed (Ideally steel, Med CX frameset / Small-Medium XC Hardtail) that they’re NOT going to turn into a lockdown project, I’ve decided to use an old 2006/7 small Carrera Vulcan frame that has been unused in my garage for 10 years, as the starting point.
(Maybe that’s the best outcome, recycling something that would have just become landfill in another 10 years …)