What am I doing???

There are plenty of things I have thrown myself at without realising what it is I am about to do. Facing the mountain never gets less intimidating even with increasing years. So it is again that I set myself against a new challenge. Bike building. Quite why I should be doing this is a lesson in a renewed love of cycling, economics, and the need for some hardware. Now I have to say my natural forte tends to be in the more theoretical aspects of life, but even so I do tend to manage to bodge and muddle through most tasks because I have at least thought the process through. So it is with the logic being:- I have a cheap mountain bike (given to me free), I have been out riding single track a lot, I am now entering the zone where the flexibility in the frame and some of the components are not going to be so tolerant of where I am trying to be on the hillside, (that is to say not down the slope in the trees). I enter the fierce arena that is ebay and come out with a Specialized P3 from around 2000/2001. My plan was to make a straight swap of components from the old bike to the new and then upgrade at leisure. I could never has been so wrong!