Quote Originally Posted by zia View Post
+1 for the Jamis bikes. They are a pretty good value. I ended up buying my first road bike used, but a Jamis was a close second. I have fantasies about finding a great steel frame at a yard sale and building it up myself... may never happen, but I do find old steel frames so beautiful.
zia,
Sifting though Schwinn frames would definitely be worth your while -- look / ask for the serial numbers, and compare with frame quality -- there are tons of resources for interpreting Schwinn serial numbers on the web. I'm sure at some point you will stumble across a great frame at next to nothing. You can run modern indexed bar-end shifters on frames that have downtube shifters, I believe.

Also, many people will not touch bike frames with a french bottom bracket, since these are no longer made. If the bottom bracket is in good condition (e.g. cranks turn smoothly!), and the teeth on the chainrings are in great condition, and you like the crankset (crank arm length, chainring setup), then it can be worth getting. You will likely get a great deal on the frame, but might need to spend more money several years down the line to get chainring / crankset replacements.

Or even just paying a bit more for a known quantity -- my Bianchi Eros was not a bargain price, but I had fun so far decking her out in bling, and I'm now planning to slowly upgrade components.