From the frame up

ianspeare

I'm thinking of building a bike from the frame up. Does anyone have any tips and advice drawing from their experience of this? Aside from the frame, what would be the best areas to spend money on and where can you get away with spending a little less?

smoggysteve

Most cost effective way to lighten a bike is wheels. Anything else like stems or bars or groupsets will cost alot more per gram to reduce.

Saying that. Be careful to choose the components you use. Sram are probably the lightest groupsets for the money. You could spend a lot on finishing kit for very little weight saving which would be better spent on other things. End of the day, better rolling wheels trumps weight saving any day.

swissnick

I just finished building onto a Dogma frame and a lot of decisions seemed to flow from transmission and cable routing selection. I went internal wiring and an electronic transmission , that drove selection of bars that could accommodate the wiring and cables.
Depending on your frame transmission and routing is the next big decision, bars may be dictated by that depending on which way you go. I would spend the money on transmission , other parts are more straight forward to update later...

Monty Dog

If your budget is tight, then downgrading groupset components like gear mechs and brakes will make little perceptible difference - it's the shifter that gives the 'quality' of shift. Likewise, lower range cassettes will work just as well - but will be heavier. After the frame, spend the money on wheels rather than transmission parts - these wear out in time and therefore provide scope to upgrade in the future. Obviously, contact points like bars and saddle are critical to comfort too - no point in buying three cheapo saddles which are uncomfortable which you end up replacing.

swissnick

Monty knows more than me ! Sounds like good advice !

Monty Dog

I should add that selectively going down one rank in groupset hierarchies often means the components only differ slightly in terms of finish e.g Shimano 105 and Tiagra or Campagnolo Centaur and Veloce. Also, you can pay 2x as much for a high end cassette to find it lasts half the time because the sprockets are made from titanium or alloy.

ianspeare

Any recommendations for a frame? I'm looking at a budget of around £600-£800 for the frame

chris@68

Firstly - Hi! First ime posting after some intense lurking

Couple of things - thanks to Ian for the post - I was about to post something similar as I've just rec'd my new frame and forks and have been have a real old metal tussle as to where to allocate 'build' funds! The answers above are most useful - I'm hoping my friend is splitting his old bike and I can pick up his 105 group set. If not, it'll be tiagra with the £110 saved (between that and new 105) helping a lot with wheel budget. At 15 stone, i'll not be going mad though!

Ian, re frame - I just picked up a Scott CR1 Pro from Westbrook - http://www.westbrookcycles.co.uk/frames-c6/road-frames-c112/scott-cr1-pro-hmf-road-frame-set-2012-p194664 £499. Includes BB (fitted) and a short, polite call to the shop ensured headset cups and crown race were also fitted for me They seem a really good bunch to deal with.

Usual disclaimer - I have no link, connection etc to Westbrook
HTH

Chris

arlowood

Hi Ian

Unless you are hellbent on sourcing new components, don't discount what is on offer in the classified section on this site. (you need to be logged in to your BR account to be able to view the offers).

I recently built up a "winter" bike where around 80% of the components were sourced from sellers in the Road Parts sub-section. This included 105 STI's, rear mech and non-series Shimano R565 crankset that had been taken from a new bike so that the seller could fit another groupset - so effectively brand new but costing less than half the new price. You'll also find plenty of choice in cassettes, bars, stems, seat posts etc for a lot less than new prices.

Bear in mind that the majority of Shimano drivetrain parts are mutually compatible so you can generally mix Tiagra, 105, Ultegra and Dura Ace without any problem. So unless you are insistent on uniformity of components, you can assemble the gearing relatively cheaply.

For frames, have a look on the Paul Milnes Ebay site.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Paul-Milnes-Cy ... 34.c0.m322

I sourced my Alu frame from them (Forme Longcliffe) and found them to be excellent and helpful. Usual disclaimer - I have no connection to Paul Milnes other than as a satisfied customer

ianspeare

Any thoughts on a Riley Excalibur? I'm looking to develop my climbing skills, and all the reviews I've seen so far seem to favour this