>>2007659the thing to realize anon, is that 'gravel bike' is not a new concept.
They had bikes that were ideally suited for riding on gravel trails and offered a more relaxed ride on road, and a more extreme challenge on mtb trails, they had those in the 80s / 90s. They were called touring bikes, cyclocross, randonneur, hybrid, trekking, and mountain bikes.
If you can find a nice project, overhauling it and putting ~$200 of nice new consumables like tires, grips and cables, can absolutely make sense.
If you have specific aims like carrying stuff, getting wider gear range, or dialing the ergonomics/ fit for yourself, modifying it makes sense.
If things are worn out like the wheels, you open up modifying it quite a lot.
It is not worth arbitrarily modernizing a bike or copying someone else's reddit build. Things like a disc conversion probably aren't realistic or sensible, and changing to a different bottom bracket standard makes absolutely no sense and would be next to impossible.
It really depends on if you can find a nice project. Do not spend much money on something basic. If you find a basic bike that you kinda like, it is worth overhauling, but such a bike is not a good base for a 'custom build', unless that custom build is clearing out your cheap parts.
Most of working on bikes is cleaning stuff and patiently servicing it, so if you're lazy and envision it as more like playing with legos, which you buy shiny and new and which all slot together perfectly, i would suggest a different hobby.
