Out of all the bike restobuild completion pics I see, I’m starting to wonder… How many of you actually rebuild your bike completely on your own?

Yep, I have to nobody else cares for bikes but me so solo it is 🤣

I don’t lace wheels or swap headset races, but I do pretty much everything else

I don’t know that I’ve necessarily ever realized this before now, but aside from some wheels I had built when I was a teenager, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bike shop do any work on any bike I’ve ever owned. 

I had my father teach me – often wrong but close enough – how to do some things (and more importantly how to figure out for myself how things work and fit together), and then I figured a lot out by myself with the help of magazines and library books, and then I spent time in bike shops and picked up more proper methods.

At the end of the day, bikes are a fairly simple machine. If you know generally how mechanical things interact, you can get a handle on most of it through deduction, and you can fill in the rest with how-tos and willingness to ask questions.

I do all the work on my own. Cut my teeth working in a shop for 8 years, it’s very helpful to get the requisite experience at a shop with thousands of hours working on bikes.

I’ll also note that the labor costs would ruin most x bikes and exceed their value. New cables, rubber, and a full tune is probably $200+

I just dig through my local used bike shops used parts bins till I find some thing that might work for a current or future builld.

I do… Though I do it reluctantly with newer bikes. I learned how to wrench on 70s and 80s road bikes out of necessity. Then I got a volunteer position as a mechanic at a local bike nonprofit and learned a lot more. I don’t know my way around suspension or tubeless tires yet. I’m still riding 80s and 90s bikes – mostly rigid 26ers. Iove bike shops but they are expensive. I can usually buy the tool I need for less than labor prices.

Like 20 of mine and hundreds of others.

What I liked was when a person brought in an old bike to be fixed a little, and a year later they have had us build an entirely different bike out of the original one.

I don’t have facing tools and don’t want to own them so I’ll pay for facing.

I recently paid my LBS to mount some fat tubeless 29ers for my hardtail. But I do my own ghetto tubeless 26 stuff.

I paid my fave LBS in another state where I keep a bike to replace the 1” headset because it loosened while I was riding down the hill and got hammered pretty hard before I noticed.

I will absolutely pay for media blasting and paint or powder coat. Keeps all the nastiness contained where it belongs.

The rest of it is pretty basic although learning compatibility can be frustrating.

Haven’t laced up a dished wheel or tried to design/print my own decals.

My only experience with suspension was replacing some elastomers that had turned to goo.

I also haven’t done any welding or brazing, which I’m moderately interested in trying.

Haven’t touched disc brakes or electrically shifted derailleurs. Guessing it’ll be a while before i see a DI2 equipped bike in a trash pile near me.

Edit: OP, is there a reason you’re taking the chainring side bottom bracket cone off of those cranks?

Earlier this year I stripped a 1997 bike I found on facebook marketplace down to the frame. It was neglected and rusted, and only cost me 60 bucks. I kept the headset (cleaned and greased it), kept the fork, and kept the seat post. Everything else was either new or something I had laying around.

I had swapped parts on bikes for decades before that, but had never done an entire bike in one go.

My wife loves it.

I wouldn’t pay for all the parts AND pay labor to install them. That would be several hundred dollars more on top of the cost of the parts. I’m into it for just under 400 bucks, but I had cranks, wheels, tires, a chain, brake and derailleur cables, and housings on hand. If I had to buy all that and pay for labor, the bike would probably be well over a grand at this point.

I’m guessing most guys here don’t restomod a bike by paying someone else to do it. If they don’t do the work themselves, they’re finding an as-is bike that’s already been worked up by someone else and they can afford the turn key price.

I’ve done all of mine. And I’ve built or rebuilt bikes for pretty much everyone in the family that wants one.

It started out just wanting to learn more about maintaining my bike, ended up buying a worn out bike to learn to rebuild, then I was just on a roll from there.

I’m one of those lucky people who is completely self-taught and has a good understanding of how things work, even if seeing a new device for the first time. I’ve always repaired, serviced and restored my own stuff, whether it is workshop equipment, electrical equipment, cars motorcycles or cycles.

I’ve even made fixtures and tools to aid servicing and repair, such as a derailleur hangar alignment tool and a fixture for rebuilding old Shimano freehubs.

Aside from building my own wheels, I do all of my service and upgrades. I have built several bikes from the frame up.

Building (i call it playing with) bikes is 60% of the fun of riding bikes

I at least try to do everything except building wheels (so far) and overall I’ve had great success. Been a blast, learned a lot, helped out friends, saved money, revived old bikes and more. My LBS has had the joy of tapping many abused/stuck/stripped screw holes since I don’t have a set for that. They’ve done a few other things like derailleur hanger alignment, diagnosing brake issues etc. It really just depends if I have the tools and the time available and I like to support my shop whenever possible

The only thing I will give up on really fast is lacing/truing my own wheels. I just don’t care to spend the time to learn. That and if I get stuck with indexing a weird shifter/derailleur combo. I’ll happily drop it off.

Real talk, my last 2 builds were 100% done by me, I just pay my local Trek store to do a once over and make sure I didn’t miss anything. Although, they didn’t appreciate the autism level in my carbon trek road bike build. All Ultrgra 6700, even the chain. I bent the chain and they replaced it with a 6800… I couldn’t sleep.

Does it count that I enjoyed doing it so much I ruined my life by opening a bike shop 😂