I sourced the shocks (used rock shox dukes,) rear deraileur, pedals, handlebar, stem, shifters, and brakes from a few bikes in the Bicycle Kitchen here in LA (I sometimes wrench there on mondays - ladies' night). The bottom bracket, cranks, chainrings, and wheels came from my old touring bike, I had the wheels built by wheelsmith years and years ago in Palo Alto - super durable, and I've gone thousands of miles on them with only having to true them once, so I wanted to make a conversion that kept those. The only things I had to purchase were a seat post clamp, some cable housings, and a new front deraileur (as I couldn't find any that fit the new wide "downtube" of the kit.)
Man, the first ride today was squirrelly. It really wants to turn when you don't want it to. Having read the boards a lot, it looks like I'm probably shifting my weight too much like I would on an upright bike. After an hour of tooling around in a parking lot, I'm getting more stable, but I will want to do that a few more times before I take it on a road with traffic.
I am very impressed with my physical comfort while riding. It has been years since my neck hasn't hurt badly after a ride of even 15 minutes. I'm guessing that after I get used to it, I may want to go with moustache handlebars to relax my forearms more, and I may want to change my cranks from my standard 175mm to something shorter to prevent any handlebar vs. knee issues.
First, though, I am going to get comfortable riding it before I make any major changes to geometry of handlebars or cranks.
