The pre built bike rip off

Helping a family find a bike for their son to go racing. Something to upgrade as you go. This was a hard task. Overvalued bikes with inappropriate groupsets, cheap wheels. Lots of deception to navigate to find what the bike is really worth.

[daviddjerassi]

Your 100% on the ball how many parents are faced with the same dilemma a race bike is the same cost as a top end second hand car you have saved that family hundreds or maybe even more Mapdec is a one off cycle engineering company with few equals loved the video thanks.

[mikekelly]

Whenever I buy a new bike I always have to swap out the bars, stem, bar tape, saddle, wheels and pedals as well. So paying for the factory installed ones is just a waste.

[NeilXDavis]

It’s pretty much always been that way. I’ve always bought a frame and build over winter gradually waiting for the sales on components. Built an sworks aethos last winter and saved many thousands over the off the peg full bike. Got the frame from Spanish spesh dealer and saved £500 alone.

[Grunge_Cycling]

The price for the Cadex 42 wheels was only for the front wheel, which cost 1099.

[simonr]

Spot on, It’s what I have always done. For me its part of the enjoyment of the hobby finding a frame, planning the build, working out which components you can reuse, what new bits you need, new tools etc.

If your happy enough not to have the latest and greatest, there are some good bargains to be had out there.

[nellyxx]

Second hand rim brake frame, cobbled together old lightweight kit- UCI limit achievable on a budget, just like it always was... no need to pay thousands to hinder performance with a 8-9kg build.

[PhilB]

absolutely bang on. get a frameset, buy decent wheels and finishing kit and get someone to put it together. save money and get what you want!!!

[johnt]

If you wait for January half of these over-priced pre builts go on sale for a far more reasonable price. I got a Trek Emonda SL5 for £2100, "landfill" wheels got upgraded. And then I swapped the saddle, tyres and power meter around with my Allez. I've now got a decent Emonda and a turbo trainer bike.

Not a chance I'd be paying full price though.

[nomadcarpenter]

Recomended Retail Pricing is insane, over the last 15 years:
Dura ace has gone up 600% 500 to 3000
Frames have gone up 300% £1000 to £3000
Handlebars have gone up 1000% from £80 to £800

Hunt around, find the bargains, build it yourself.

[worldofameiso]

Definitely, second-hand is the way to go - loads of decent kit out there for less than £1, 000. Upgrading what you have with second=hand kit is great fun and teaches you about the workings of bikes, which adds to your enjoyment of the hobby. When i can buy a brand new Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor motorcycle for just over £6, 000 it makes you realise how much profit these bike companies are levering out of the punters- disgusting.

[MrChippinator]

What I did was buy an older bike and piece by piece upgraded a few of the components. The only thing left from the original owner now is the frame, seat post and saddle all of which I like. Saved me a fortune compared to what a new similar specced bike would’ve cost.

[LukeRichardson]

Figured this out for myself this year when I went to get a new road bike, with a budget of around 20, 000 Chinese Yuan (around 2100 pounds). Didn't really like the specs on any of the pre-built bikes that were available here in China so I decided to build up a bike for myself. Ended up getting a custom Ti frame from Waltly (including Ti seatpost and stem and a carbon fork), Ultegra R8000 mechanical shifters and derailleurs, hand built 50mm deep carbon wheels with DT Swiss 350 hubs, PRO aluminum aero handlebar, cable actuated hydraulic brakes, and a spider power meter for the same basic budget, and since I'm somewhat mechanically competent I was able to build the bike up myself. Weight is around 9kg and it's a beautiful, quick, and comfortable bike that I really love. It also has the ability to be upgraded to Di2 and hydraulic brakes later in the future which I will probably do in a year or two.

[chad]

In my experience, whether or not custom building provides a better value comes down to what frames are being considered and who's going to do the labor of assembly. If you're very particular about wanting a best in class frame, whether we're talking about the top 10% of carbon, Steel, or titanium frames, then there's no getting around paying a premium for it. Ebay sellers will charge a premium just like the brands do.

And if you're going to have your LBS build the bike, tack on an extra $300 (in Seattle). Wheels are a commodity now, and there's very little reason in my view to pay more than $1, 500 fully built and shipped. If you truly need a better wheel than that, then you should probably be getting them for free. Put another way, if you're not getting them for free, then you probably don't really need a wheelset better than $1500 will get you.

I built my Ti bike because I wanted something unique. I paid wholesale or Craigslist prices for almost every component, and it came out to just over $4k. I can buy a comparable bike from Lynskey for less right now, but only because I'm not demanding the BEST Ti frame. If I wanted only a Moots, Seven, or Davidson, I'd be at $6-7K for my build. So, if you want a top quality and highly sought after frame, there is no cheap path because the brand will crush you on the bundle or the individual frame price, and the secondary market won't be much cheaper for the frame, and you'll have to pay for install. If you can install yourself and find a deal, then sure, there are savings to be had, but that situation doesn't present itself to most riders.

[Genarij]

The downside to building up your own bike is that insurance companies often refuse to insure those bikes. Even if you buy a fully assembled bike and change some parts there are often hard restrictions before it becomes "custom built".
Of course it doesn't really matter if you always keep your bike in a safe place and don't use it for commuting.
Thanks for the vid!

[wheelsbest]

There's a flip side to this. Ive been looking at getting an alloy endurance frameset for my wife. Having spent ages scouring different brands it's become apparent that the best option is to buy the cheapest Trek Domane AL full bike, rip off the Claris gruppo and wheels and stick some half decent wheels (which I already have) and a 105 groupset. In the sale I can get the whole bike for around £700. A 105-spec Domane AL then for around £1200. Thats what I would have expected to pay pre-C19.

[nickbond]

I've assembled my last two bikes from framesets up. The two main advantages for me are 1. Being able to tweak components to adjust fit characteristics such as bar width and stem length and 2. Specifying componentry such as crank length and chainset size

[pegcanuck]

The Giant SLR Pro 1 does come with a power meter. Explains part of the price difference between Ultegra vs 105 models. Giant branded and GP Lama tested it and thinks it’s a good power meter.

[georgehagstrom]

I did the same thing recently, and I think I'm going to keep doing it this way. If you are price conscious it gives you so much flexibility to find deals, and you can upgrade as you go. I ended up replacing an old and heavily dented CAAD 9 with a Fuji Roubaix Elite frame which was basically on a bankruptcy sale, and picked out the crankset, handlebars, and wheels that I wanted, and finally just now am swapping the old mix of Chorus/Record 10 to Chorus 12 (which seems to be super cheap at the moment). I don't think I could have justified spending $2k+ all at once on a new bike. If you like picking out your own parts, and have a local bike shop you like, I think it is a no brainer. The only "downside" I would say is you have a lot of choices that maybe don't make a big difference so you can spend too much time thinking about things.

[steppings]

Always bought by bikes from the frame up, mainly new stuff, some carried over, its part of the enjoyment. Custom handbuilt wheels are also the way to go, specced to how you want rather than the factory telling you what you want.

[owend]

The Advanced and Advanced pro have the exact same frame, the pro just comes with carbon wheels and di2 options. In previous generations I think the only difference between the frames was that the pro had a full carbon fork whereas the non pro fork had an alloy steerer, but now they are identical. Do you have any data to back up your claim that the Advanced (and Advanced Pro as they are the same frame) is "heavy" and "flexy"? Or are you just reading the marketing and inferring that the lower grade frame must be significantly worse than the top spec SL frame?

Do you have any suggestions (based on data, not marketing) for frames/full bikes in a similar price range that have better frames than the TCR?