Custom Extra Small 42cm TREK steel 9x3 touring bike w/ 26-inch wheels,

OVERVIEW: Here’s a great 42cm — or 16.5-inch or EXTRA SMALL — mid-1990’s TREK 930 steel MTB frame that I custom-built into a 9x3 drop-bar touring / gravel bike with 26-inch wheels. Drivetrain is bombproof 9-speed triple setup with bar-end shifters. Mid-90s Trek 900-series MTB frames had identical (or better) tubing to that era’s Trek 520 touring road frames — and came in sizes much smaller than 48cm, the smallest size offered then or now in the 520 — so I try and build up any sub-48cm 900-series frames I can find into drop-bar tourers, in order to give smaller riders the chance to get on a touring bike. While Trek never built drop-bar tourers with 26-inch wheels, Surly and other boutique manufacturers did for a time; as I just mentioned, they can be sized smaller because of their smaller-than-700c wheels, plus they can run much wider tires than most road tourers, letting riders get farther off road, and making them de facto gravel bikes. This custom touring bike was built up the other day by me; I’ve been wrenching on bikes for nearly 40 years, much of that time professionally.
FRAME: Frame and fork are circa mid-90s and made of Trek’s legendary True Temper OX triple-butted chromoly lugged steel, just like that era’s 520. Frame boasts: extra-long-chainstays; braze-ons/mounts for front/rear racks and fenders, and clearance for 3-inch-plus tires. Absolutely no dents anywhere on frame or fork, just some cosmetic scuffs/scratches here and there, as well as a few small areas of chipped paint where the previous owner applied some green touch-up paint (and did a fine job). Frame measures 16.5 inches (or 42cm) from center of bb to top of seat-tube. Top-tube measures roughly 20.75 inches (or 52cm) from center-to-center, which is a little long for a 42cm drop-bar tourer, but which I compensated for by adding a zero-reach stem (see MISC section below). Standover is roughly 28.5 inches with the current 26x1.85 tires mounted.
DRIVETRAIN: Bike came to me as a frameset with a partial Shimano STX gruppo. I kept the partial STX gruppo (42-32-24 crank, triple front derailleur, canti brakes) and added: NEW Microshift Shimano-compatible 9-speed bar-end shifters (right/rear shifter can shift in index or friction mode; left/front shifter is friction only), like-new Shimano Deore long-cage 9-sp rear derailleur, like-new Shimano 11-32 cassette, NEW IRD 9-speed chain, and newish square-taper Shimano BB.
WHEELS/TIRES: Wheels are bombproof SUN 32-hole wheels (just trued by me), with smooth-spinning Shimano Deore F&R hubs (both hubs were just re-packed and adjusted by me). Tires are NEW Michelin ProTek Cross 26x1.85 go-anywhere tires w/ reflective stripe.
MISC: Bars are NEW 41cm 31.8 drop bars with flat upper section mounted to NEW threadless zero-reach stem (use of this stem is enabled by my adding a threaded-to-threadless stem adapter). Cork bar tape is NEW Soma tape. Saddle is NEW Planet Bike saddle mounted to original Trek 27.2 seatpost. Housing/cables are either new or low-mileage stuff from my parts bin. Brake levers are NEW Tektro aero levers, and brake pads are newish pads from my parts bin.
PRICE/SHIPPING: But It Now price is $449. Shipping to anywhere in Lower 48 United States is $149 (sorry, NO shipping to Alaska or Hawaii; also, NO shipping to PO Boxes) — but if you live near the Seattle Metro area, you can instead pick up for FREE at my home in Sammamish, WA, which is about a half hour drive due east of Seattle.