Ive always gotta be the rebel....Ive never built a bike for free. The cheapest ive ever built a bike for was $120. sorry hooch, I dont agree with what you said about the midwest. Bikes are available, but most of them come from barns and all the "barn stuff" (thats the best way I can describe it, you know, all the horrible liquid that collect in the rims from, who knows what.) Things like the "barn stuff" make it hard to find good heavy weight rims. most of the farmers around here were too poor to buy the bikes with springers, so you gotta make use of what you find.
Tornado dave, you are 100% right about what you said about people building a bike and appricriating it more,always a true fire way to teach resposibillity.