Now that doesn’t look quite right…
It could just be the camera angle, but it certainly looks like the left horn of my handlebars is tilted down at a different angle than the right is. And for the life of me I can’t think of when I could have crunched the handlebars. The bike has been toppled a couple of times onto its left side (because of the cats trying to leap on it) and right side (most notably when I was trying to check in for the Birkie this spring, but was so cold I ended up tripping over the poor mlcm while trying to get enough circulation back into my fingers to sign the liability waiver,) and I’ve crashed it a couple of times; once on the (still-railroaded-at-that-time part of the) Banks-Vernonia trail last spring, and again just the other week, but that crash was the bicycle falling on me, not flipping me over the bars like it did before.
But however it happened I now appear to have a pair of handlebars with scoliosis. That’s a bit annoying. And confusing, since I don’t know when it happened.
I’ve got a pair of mustache bars sitting in the basement, and I’ve been interested in seeing how they feel, so I suppose I could always do a multiple-bicycle shuffle (pull the rando bars off the mlcm and pull the rando bars off the trek and put them onto the mlcm, then put the mustache bars onto the trek (I think they push my hand positions further out than the B135s do, so that would work well with the cramped operator’s cab on the trek.) I’d need to figure out what to do for brake levers, though, because I’d hate to unravel the twine & shellac that these suspicious handlebars have on them.
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That bicycle is quite a stunner, but it’s also CAD$1600 (which, given exchange rate & duty, would probably end up costing about US$2500 delivered to my house.)
And then I’d need to retrofit it, which would probably cost me another US$400 (add up the cost of a leather saddle, fenders, a dynohub, lights, different handlebars) and I’m bumping up on US$3000 before I’ve even fired up a torch and hacked together a rack for it.
This is why I don’t look at custom made bicycles; that’s close to a month of work right there without even riding the bicycle (the mlcm is approaching US$2000 now, but that’s after a few parts swapouts and replacing worn components with newer ones.)
(I would make an exception for a custom longtail to replace my trek, but not unless my consulting rate was upped considerably.)
I wouldn’t have put duty and shipping – exchange rate is pretty much par, no? – at 900 bucks, but then again I’ve never shipped a bicycle. (You certainly wouldn’t have to pay HST on it.)
But I take your (implied) point on the benefit/cost ratio being pretty low for any complete bike.
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The combination of the virtual, distant sound of metal failure ping noises and the vague recollection that 58cm is about your frame size made me think of you in response to the top item:
http://www.truenorthcycles.com/framebuilders-garage-sale/
You’d presumably have to extend your summer job a bit, but only a bit.