u/Street-Dependent-647

Imagine that one day, your dream bike drops in your lap. A completely original, one of a kind bike that checks all the boxes, and has somehow survived the last 30 years in a time capsule. The sort of thing I envied when I was my fastest, but was terribly out of reach. This was me three years ago, I was the proud new owner of an Independent Fabrications Deluxe 26” with awesome tricolor paint, minty 90’s components, even fresh touchpoints. Totally fixated on this new ride, I put a few other project bikes on the back burner.

I spent the first couple weeks making adjustments to fit. Little things kept coming up, and I began to think the frame was too small for me. It came to me from a friend with a swept back bar so I swapped stem and bar for a bullmoose bar, trying to make the bike a bit longer. It didn’t do enough, and I swapped a modern riser bar that helped but didn’t really work aesthetically. Next came a more modern fork, which changed the geometry too much. A suspension corrected rigid fork finally made things right while i was in the saddle. It had become something totally different by this time, and I realized quickly after that I wasn’t in love anymore. It sat for two years and I picked other bikes to ride.

All along, the bike had been too small and I realized my focus should have stayed on those other projects. I saw I could find most of the parts in one place… So the decision was made, and the parts carefully removed, and the frame listed on eBay. I would take the wheelset, brake calipers, BB, headset/stem/handlebars to rebuild a fondly remembered Fuel 90. The second bike to benefit is a ‘95 Gary Fisher Grateful Dead HooKooEKoo, which will get the derailleurs, cranks, shifters, brake levers, and other touchpoints. Even the bullmoose bars were pulled out of a box and seem to be destined for a couple more miles.

At first I was more bothered by the idea of parting out the Independent Fabrications but I like the idea of having two bikes I will ride rather than one I don’t. I think the IF will make a great blank canvas for whoever ends up with it, and I hope they end up enjoying it the way I hoped to.

I would like to get the xbiking perspective on this. Tell me what you wouldj have done. Have I committed an unforgiveable sin? Is it better to give someone else a chance?

I have a valid commercial license, it’s worked well for years. Got an error yesterday and had to force quit through task manager and it’s been doing this since. Any ideas or experience with this? I was 3D printing some fun stuff at home yesterday but need to get things back to normal for Monday.