The LHT epic begins!

The past year I've been doing quite a bit of biking. I've also being trying to live a little more car-free. After building up the IRO (Blog Here) I decided that I would like to try and stop using the bus as well and do all my work/back commuting via bike. Being that I live up in Twin Peaks riding a fixed gear up and down everyday is often more work than it's worth. I can't really carry anything too large for too long, and the idea of doing short little tours into the next county overnight is increasingly more attractive. So I sold off some extra parts I had around, and an old 10-speed schwinn for quite a bit of money which got this project off the ground. The Schwinn was totally not an eligible candidate for use. It's too heavy, doesn't have anyway to hook up a rack, and uses 27" tires. So the search for an appropriate frame began.

There's actually a lot of decent touring completes out there. Cannondale T2000/800, Trek 520 and the Surly Long Haul Trucker. The C-dale/520 are out of my price range, and the LHT has been sold out for awhlile now. The other problem is that I don't like road drops. I like riding on the flats and although I could put inline cross levers on it as well, it's heavier and I lose all that bar space. I wanted moustache bars and downtube shifters so any money spent on that would put the budget over the top.

So frame up using used parts seemed like the way to go. I got some parts off of Nashbar early on that I knew would be universal, but then got stuck and couldn't do much more without a frame to know tube sizes. I scoured craigslist for weeks trying to find something that would work and am still striking out. I have picked up a frame in the meantime though, so onward with the Long Haul Trucker!