[herr_oberst]

I saw something on youtube or somewhere where this guy built a really sweet fixie out of an old Schwinn Varsity, (vintage Phil hubs, lots of love, nice paint, etc) so, in a daydreaming mood, I went to craigslist to check out how much a frame would cost. Sweet Holy Moses! I only found one Varsity, they were asking 150, and there were a whole bunch of Suburbans for between 1 and 200 bucks. Same with LeTours, and absolutely no Super LeTours on this day.

Doesn't seem that long ago that a beater Varsity/Suburban/LeTour could be had for the price of a couple of six packs at the local thrift store or garage sale (tag sale to you east coasters.) Guess I can put off the fixie project until I rethink the frame, cuz there is no way I am paying that kind of money for cheap non - lugged carbon steel (stamped steel dropouts, ferchrissakes), just because the kool kids are using them!

I think I might start with one of the Giant derivatives from the late 90's instead. They made a zillion of them and some of them were actually pretty nice bikes at the time for the price.