I've been looking for a bike to use to ride to work, get groceries, and to go downtown with, without worrying too much about leaving it out in the rain or what not. (I don't have anywhere to bring the bikes in at work and I know bikes are meant to be ridden outside, but I don't want to leave my road bikes out in the rain/sun/whatever.)

This mostly consisted of watching craigslist and going, they want how much for that old of a bike???

I saw surly pacer had posted her 43 cm surly pacer frame for sale on here just before Christmas, and I totally rationalized it as being good for me and the environment, and a Christmas present to us both to buy it. I've also been pretty curious about steel bikes, because of the steel is real crowd... I had a complete set of 8 speed xtr shifters, derailleurs & cassette that I'd upgraded off an old mountain bike and decided I'd use those, because it'd be cheaper than buying stuff... I had a spare set of wheels that always felt too slow for the road bike - I'd been letting my bf use 'em as trainer wheels, but I took them back.

After much drama. The bike is rideable

Of course, through various incompatibilities and the rest of that, I ended up buying stuff and my cheap commuter wasn't quite so cheap anymore. Tiagra brakes via ebay, I splurged on red panaracer t-serv 700x28 tires (but only one came, the other was a 700x25, so I'm waiting for my replacement... ) I got origin 8 tiki handlebars 'cause I really wanted mustache ones, but the xtr shifters wouldn't fit on them, so now I've got a specialized flat bar with zertz inserts on it and I'm debating buying the soma sparrows... I got some cheap truvativ cranks off ebay because after thinking about it, I decided I didn't want to put my spare pair of carbon fiber cranks on a commuter... None of the spare front derailleurs I had would play nice with the setup, so I had to buy a 9 speed shimano 105 front derailleur... I pouted for days about the origin 8 handlebars.

My universal bike rack appeared to be universal except if you put it on a 43 cm frame... So we had to file down the bottoms, and then jury rig the connection by hooking it up in between the seatpost collar, by filing down the seatpost collar and cutting an elbow shaped bracket... and lots of cursing. And my cannondale rear bike bag won't fit underneath my seat, so I think I'll be relying on panniers. I've got some trader joe's colorful bags that I'm gonna sew up to make panniers out of, but I ordered some cheap ones off amazon to use for now:
http://www.amazon.com/M-Wave-Double-...4825763&sr=8-2

But... I put flame stickers on it. Now I will go fast on it.

The bike is either named Surly or Flame. It was a little bit surly to build...

So it needs grips, I want the soma sparrow handlebars, and the new red tire ain't here yet...

And it sorta feels like riding a tank... I haven't decided whether that's the feel of the 700x28 wheel or the steel. But fun either way. And while it's been a pain to get everything working together, it's been fun in that it's a bike that I can have fun with, and buy stuff purely based on, oh hey, that's gonna look cute... which I don't do on my other bikes.