Thanks!
Yep, that's absolutely true. I'm trying to give the small domestic companies a little business and I love the exposed brazing on these bars. I had actually planned to move these bars to a klunker build at some point but they work so well on this bike that I think they may stay. 
Oops i meant @Pondo
Gorgeous trails!
It's very fun for me. It gets me out in the woods where it's beautiful, peaceful and healthy.
I use Mr truffles for puncture protection and keep it above 40lbs for rim blows. I could go tubeless and have thought about it many times. I also carry co2 fillers with me. Much faster than a pump.Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. It was a fun build and it's proving to be really fun out on the trails. Now I just need to figure out how to keep air in the tires.
there are outer good tires. If you hit the gravel on the downhill, pull weight of the front tire a bit. On the uphill lean back on the seat . I find that caBoulder.
Those words "beautiful, peaceful, and healthy" say it all. It has kept me engaged to the mountain bike and the world it opens up for the past 36 years.
Looks like you had to go as hard as I did on the new parts. Ish got expensive!I bought the bike 2 years ago just for the frame. I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $100. I used the frame, bottom bracket, seatpost and binder bolt.
Amazon parts:
Cranks with chainring and bolts: $40
Pedals: $23
Stem: $10
Headset spacers: $9
Shifter & cable: $60
Rear tire: $35
Disc brake adapter: $24
Parts not from Amazon:
FSA headset: $25
chain: $22
cassette: $66
derailleur: $45
bars: $140
grips: $15
So my estimate was only under by a bit with $515 on new parts.
I'm not going to add the cost of a Brooks saddle as the Specialized saddle from my original GT is around here somewhere in a box and will go on eventually. The rest of the parts I had are used parts that I've had on other bikes and range from old to really old. A good parts bike would yield all of those parts for $100-200. In fact I could have done the whole project with a good parts bike and kept the cost down around $200-250 total but I wanted to use some parts I had in the stash and I also wanted to trick the bike out a bit. And I'll probably continue to trick it out as I get around to upgrading some of the lower level parts. Tubeless rims come to mind for starters. So yeah, kind of spendy but it's a nostalgia build for me and won't be getting kicked down the road. I've got some other projects to build up that will cost under $100. And others that will cost more than this one. And the madness continues unabated.
