Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Can I say from the outset, I am very green when it comes to the whole bike rebuilding, so please take it easy on me

I am looking to build up a bike to commute the short distance to and from work. I was looking a salvaging one of two frames for the job - a Apollo Taledo or Speedwell Streak. The Apollo appears to be late 80's, in relatively good condition. Not sure on age of the Speedwell, it has no real rust issues but will probably need to be repainted.

I am interested in thoughts as to which is the better option for a beginners commute project? I have come home with the Speedwell, but it cost next to nothing so would be happy to go back and grab he Apollo if it was the better bike.

mr. drubie has a pretty good treatise on what details to look for on recent era frames. Worth reading and then you can best decide for yourself which of the 2 frames is of better quality.

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Thanks Spirito! Having now read Mr Drubie's excellent post I realise I should have spent much more time looking at components rather than just the frame At least what I have gives me something to learn from before I go anywhere near something nice....

... Think I found a modest upgrade of a Europa

MsD wrote:... Think I found a modest upgrade of a Europa

Cool .... in saying that the name isn't too important at the budget end. As long as it has good quality dropouts/frame fittings and components it should be a sign that it was once a reasonable bike and it should be serviceable.

Careful with the latter. It's easy to throw $300 - $500 into a $150 project bike and not anywhere near as easy (mostly impossible) to recover any of that should you wish to sell it on. Sometimes it's more prudent to up the budget, and there's plenty of places (classifieds here, ebay, gumtree) where someone else has done the hard work and spent the $'s. Post a wanted ad, be specific of what you would like ... there's lots of people looking to sell bikes out there.

Thanks for the advice, I am beginning to see how easy it is to spend a lot of money!

At the moment this is a bit of learning exercise, taking things apart is half the fun. I have not started to break the bike down yet but I am hopeful that I can get it on the road with minimal replacements and slowly upgrade components as I see them. It has a SR stem, suntour downtube shifters, shimano eagle derailer (from what I have read heavy and at the lower end but preferable to a tourney) and dia compe breaks. It has nice lugs and the frame is a little smaller than the others I was looking. Initially I am intending to give it all a good clean, replace the cables, seat and rims. Later I will look at repainting and upgrading the running gear. To be honest, I am pretty chuffed with it.

I also picked up a peugeot step through at the same time but it needs much more work so may sit in the shed for a little while