how long to get your bike just right

darwin said:

Check this out, 1 Staton F/D kit, 1 Gasbike HS 49cc and a bike of your choosing, say $400. 1 hours [fine tuning for a week or so] but your ridin.

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I'll never get an f/d the way I like it. I'm sure it works for some but I don't want my weight distribution to be so wonky and I want to use the rack for cargo

I also have a feeling that the creek I ride through often would make an f/d slip

jacob said:

Had my bike (happy time) for almost 2 weeks now and im still at the tweaking stage for things like the chain and chain tensioner.

How long has it taken you to get your bike to the stage when you can ride it whenever and its fine?

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For me its probably never.
I am constantly having to adjust or tweek or replace something on mine. In all fairness I am a rather heavy person so Im sure my troubles are related to how much weight its pulling around.
I use a shift kit so right now, just today I found my cassette cogs, the smallest 3 are so worn out even grinding them with a dremel just made them worse. 2 weeks ago it was the rear wheel, I bought a cheap replacement 5 months ago and it lasted awhile until the non stainless steel spokes started breaking 1 by 1 so I got a box of stainless steel spokes and relaced the wheel. It seems when I fix 1 thing, something else shortly needs attention. My bike atleast, is a tweekers dream.

jacob said:

How long has it taken you to get your bike to the stage when you can ride it whenever and its fine?

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It took me 2 years of pain and heartache to get my bike operating reliably; requiring fabrication of mechanical components as well as engine upgrades. In that time the bike travelled approximately 20,000 kilometers (or 12,500 miles) giving me nothing less than 20,000 kilometers of unreliable operation; suffering many breakdowns; leaving me stranded many kilometers from home.
They were 20,000 miserable kilometers and i can just about remember every single kilometer of that misery.

Having said that, the next two years (working out to a total time of 4 years - actually getting closer to 5 years) were and continue to be wonderful riding experiences, with the bike just humming along with excellent reliability.