Saturday night challenge for you – build me a bike for £500

All i have is a saddle, chain, 10 spd slx cassette, pedals, gear cables.
I have a budget for the rest of £500!

Needs to be:
Hardtail
Suitable for my height at 6ft 1
120mm forks/67-68 degree HA
Ideally 27.2mm seat tube
Recon level forks

Reckon it’s do-able?

Build it yourself you lazy bastard.

(…and yes, of course)

Just keep your Kaffenback.

Boom! 500 squid saved!

No ta. Watching Britain’s Got Talent.

It’s finished now so jump to it 😉

Dialled bikes love hate frame couple of weeks back £100 for a start 8)

£500? Can’t do it for that, it’ll be at least £950.

Merlin/CRC/any online retailer will be cheaper though, if you build it yourself.

timc – just looked at that – interesting and close to me

Buy second hand and complete. My brother in law just found himself a great 3 year old Spesh Camber for £500. Admittedly it’s 26″ but it’s pretty well fitted out bit of kit, and in great condition. For that money you really can’t complain. Originally we were going to build him one from second hand parts but once we started looking it’s surprising what you can get for your money at the moment.

I can only assume everyone is jumping to 650b/29er.

I thought this was a ‘donate’ thing. I have a seat clamp you can have…. I’ve no idea what size/spec it is but you can have it if it helps! Feel a bit silly offering but thought better to offer and get ridiculed, than not offer at all!!
Good luck with your build x

No chance of anything building or buying decent new for that with 120mm recon level fork unless you buy a whole bike in the sale and get very lucky. You missed out on the sunn modular s1 £530 deal from CRC when the codes were stacking over Easter.

I would look out for an ‘as new’ used bike or good second hand kit.

Alternatively wait for halfords spend and save on bikes then every couple of weeks they seem to be doing an extra 10% off online only for 2 hours between 1200-1400. Get yourself a Boardman comp or voodoo hoodoo.

Right – probably now got:
Frame
Saddle
cassette and chain
pedals
possible forks

£370 left for the rest

Frame you get?

Right this is how we are looking (N) denotes new (U) denotes used!!

Dialled love hate frame (U)
seat clamp (U)
Fox F120 forks
Superstar Ultralight pedals (U)
pro2/stans flow wheels (U)

El guapo bars (N)
FSA orbit mx headset (N)

Deore clutch mech (N)
Zee shifter (N)
Deore cranks and bb (N)
Deore brakes (N)
brake mounts (N)
Exotic bars and stem (N)

£404 so far 🙂

the love hate you said 🙂

Nice! so what else you need?

could have saved a few quid & bought just x1 set of bars 🙂

Cassette , chain , cables , quick releases ,seatpin , tires ??

Why do you have two sets of bars ?

Awful lot of new stuff for a budget build.

oops exotic STEM and seatpost
chain/cassette/saddle/ seatclamp already got

wheels are off my el guapo so have tyres on em and rotors

Speak to the chaps that robbed my garage last weekend!

robjackson

Clearly your spares box is not as full as mine! Just done a similar build for a 120mm hardtail (26 in wheels) and total outlay £64 for new frame,headset and shifters was all I needed.Good luck.

my spares box is bereft!!

Get a photo up when it’s done

£460 for my hard tail build

Right all bits are now purchased 🙂 Just wait for them to start arriving and let the build commence 🙂
I have one final “quandary” – do i share the wheels off my el guapo or use the remaining £100 i have to get another set of wheels/tyres?

£100 dont get much in the way of wheels, share while you save up!

Pic here of said bike:
http://mightytext.net/zO57Q

Good work.

I’m sure a wheelset will turn up secondhand for £100. xt/719 sort of stuff.

they did – shimano m15 with tyres and discs for £90!!

I’m not an expert in the lingo of this pass-time, so this might be way off, but: Why not just buy a voodoo bazinga?

@klumpy – That’s what I’ve just done and was going to suggest the same thing. Total cost £486 8)

Should be picking it up tomorrow. Might need some wider bars though.

because the components are not as good and it was £600

True the components aren’t as good but I’m lazy 8)

I like this and the approach. Seems pretty good to me for £500.