Americans love using superlatives, especially where they do not actually apply.
Not "at all" germain? You mean my reply had absolutely nothing to do with bicycle frames? Do you mean the OP said nothing whatsoever to do with affordability?
If you cannot get a frame and bolt on wheels, brakes, levers, and run cables , and put in a spindle and chain rings, you've got problems. There are plenty of books that tell how. It's easy. There's almost nothing to it. I have used used frames, very old ones on extremely long tours over all sorts of road conditions since 1985, and that was two different frames both old and used. 37,000 miles through 19 countries except for a shorter tour in China for which I used a new off-road sort of bike. Any well made frame will do as long as it is not defective, even if it is twenty years old. There are plenty of perfectly good used frames out there if you know where to find them. However, you might not get one on demand. You might have to do some searching around to get a good one at fleamarkets, bike shops, Goodwill stores, thrift shops, and garage sales. If you get one from a dealer, it's yours when you hand over the cash and when you want it.
The idea that one must spend $1200.00 or more on a bike, hundreds on a tent, hundreds on panniers, and hundreds on maps is absolute hogwash. You can do exactly what people do with thousands of dollars worth of equipment for a small fraction of what they spend to do it. I've been doing it for years.
