About My Blog

Hi!

first and foremost I would like you to welcome you to my blog.

This is my first DIY Mountain Bike Build. I have cycled about 7 years ago on a regular basis however, I took a break from it when I grew out of my teenage years. One of the main reasons I stopped cycling was because someone had actually stolen my last bicycle when I was about 14-16 in Singapore.

Currently I am in Victoria, Australia studying at Swinburne University of Technology. It has been an interesting experience living and studying in melbourne. I live about 15 minutes from the train stations, and my home is roughly about an hour by train to the city. I recently got a job, one suburb away. As I have to do overnight shifts and stuff I decided that I needed an alternative mode of transportation. I do not have a drivers license and getting one here would take about six months. I decided to take up a motorbike license instead but realized that a motorbike would be way over my budget. Eventually a friend of mine suggested cycling to work. At that point I started doing research on prices of a full bicycles and the parts they came with. Almost every bike was above my budget and I was looking for a hard tail mountain bike.

Given that trailing would be something I want to pursue in future. I came across articles on the net about DIY builds.

That led me into joining two forums : Bicycles Network Australia and RotorBurn.com .

These are two great forums I found that is helping me in both getting parts and information. Some users trade parts, some sell, some give them for free. So if you are looking to build a bike or are looking for spare parts this is one of the best places I know so far of in Australia.

In one of my threads on BNA (Bicycles Network Australia), a user even offered to give me a frame for free but the frame was just too big. Obviously I would have to pay for the postage. Sometimes postage for large parts such as frames can be a little costly.

Always look at a few difference sources before buying parts online, as the prices are fairly competitive. If you are looking for superseded parts, a few online stores such as ChainReactionCycles.com and MerlinCycles.com. They have a good range of old parts on discount. I don't know why purchasing parts from stores in the UK seams cheaper than the USA.   

From my initial research, I realized that I was not very sure what parts I needed to get. So I started posting threads on the blogs asking for other cyclist for advise on parts that I would need and where I could source them from. All those links are based on replies in forums on my threads.

Just two days ago I made a purchase of an On-One Inbred 16'' 26er frame with a few extra parts used for $200 from the Bicycles Network Australia forum. Once the item has been received I will post pictures of them up.

I will have regular updates on my progress of my build with pictures. If you do have comments and suggestions, I would really love to hear them. Do also feel free to post links to stores internationally that you may have found to carry good deals.


Well that's all I have time for, for the first entry on my journey to building up a new mountain bike.