Difference in alloy and carbon frames?

lawrence281 said:
I wanted to do pay a shop to do a custom so I could have it my way, possibly are there any good bikes you'd recommend that have a show room I could visit?
It's just soooo much haha,
My budget is about £1.1k
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The two highlighted kinda conflict, you wouldn't find many places doing a complete custom build with cheap enough quality parts to make it under £1100. That might sound awkward but just hear me out...! ;)

You're at the stage you want something 'better' or just more specific than you had before, equally your experience is limited to what you've already ridden and know, no matter how small that experience is. You could go through 'shopping' for parts by reading reviews for this that and the other online to then put together into a build... BUT you really need real world experience of said parts together to determine suitability/comfort/compatibility. If you go by reviews it's really is pot luck if you end up with components perfect for you/your build as the majority of reviews are quite specific to the reviewer and bike they are using...

It's a bit catch 22 - you need a way to try some of the parts out in an unbiased and balanced way to make your own decisions. It can mean buying 11 saddles and trying them all before selling 10 of them. Or it could mean getting your sit bones measured as part of a bike fit to determine more specifically what width of saddle suits you, then deciding if you want it firm/solid and the miriad of other 'features', then using this information to try and narrow your search (buying 3 and selling 2).

Really it's a minefield without having friends bikes to try or loan bikes from your local bike shop to try. For example, I rode with the 'Giant Contact' saddle on my Defy 1 (2015) for probably 12 months before changing it to a Charge Spoon, less than 2 months changing it to a Fizik Arione. I found it loads better than the Giant and Spoon but as I gained fitness and rode much more I started to struggle with saddle sores. I changed to various different more expensive shorts and found them better, increased mileage again and suffered again. When I bought a new bike (Specialized Diverge) it came with a totally different saddle than the Arione - a wider nose, a central relief channel and more gel, it's been so comfortable I actually bought another to put on my Giant! I still suffer with sores occasionally but nothing like before. Equally my experience of saddles is only 5 different saddles. There's probably a better saddle out there for me, but finding it will mostly be down to luck!
 
ok so I custom built a £1200-ish (RRP) bike a few years ago

There were a few reasons

1) I wanted campagnolo, and I wanted a specific frame
2) I wanted handbuilt wheels i'd built myself
3) I already had about £250-300 in lightly-used parts in the shed
4) I really enjoy building bikes, and had all the tools I needed so wasn't paying anyone.

You really need a critical mass of reasons like that to even get close to making sense over just buying it off the peg. Even if you change a few parts and sell everything else off, you'll still likely be better off buying off the peg.

I've not had a brand new complete bike since the 90s. I chop and change, some parts follow me to the next frame, others go. I've only had one brand new frame in that time too, copious used ones though.
 
Roady said:
The two highlighted kinda conflict, you wouldn't find many places doing a complete custom build with cheap enough quality parts to make it under £1100. That might sound awkward but just hear me out...! ;)

You're at the stage you want something 'better' or just more specific than you had before, equally your experience is limited to what you've already ridden and know, no matter how small that experience is. You could go through 'shopping' for parts by reading reviews for this that and the other online to then put together into a build... BUT you really need real world experience of said parts together to determine suitability/comfort/compatibility. If you go by reviews it's really is pot luck if you end up with components perfect for you/your build as the majority of reviews are quite specific to the reviewer and bike they are using...

It's a bit catch 22 - you need a way to try some of the parts out in an unbiased and balanced way to make your own decisions. It can mean buying 11 saddles and trying them all before selling 10 of them. Or it could mean getting your sit bones measured as part of a bike fit to determine more specifically what width of saddle suits you, then deciding if you want it firm/solid and the miriad of other 'features', then using this information to try and narrow your search (buying 3 and selling 2).

Really it's a minefield without having friends bikes to try or loan bikes from your local bike shop to try. For example, I rode with the 'Giant Contact' saddle on my Defy 1 (2015) for probably 12 months before changing it to a Charge Spoon, less than 2 months changing it to a Fizik Arione. I found it loads better than the Giant and Spoon but as I gained fitness and rode much more I started to struggle with saddle sores. I changed to various different more expensive shorts and found them better, increased mileage again and suffered again. When I bought a new bike (Specialized Diverge) it came with a totally different saddle than the Arione - a wider nose, a central relief channel and more gel, it's been so comfortable I actually bought another to put on my Giant! I still suffer with sores occasionally but nothing like before. Equally my experience of saddles is only 5 different saddles. There's probably a better saddle out there for me, but finding it will mostly be down to luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, I get where you're coming from, but I do not have the funds to do that nor the time and patience. I'm just picky, but this shop my work is partnered with does full bike builds for £80. I'll see later on in the year what I'll. Might just chicken out and buy a Ribble/ Giant bike from what I've looked at
 
Saytan said:
ok so I custom built a £1200-ish (RRP) bike a few years ago

There were a few reasons

1) I wanted campagnolo, and I wanted a specific frame
2) I wanted handbuilt wheels i'd built myself
3) I already had about £250-300 in lightly-used parts in the shed
4) I really enjoy building bikes, and had all the tools I needed so wasn't paying anyone.

You really need a critical mass of reasons like that to even get close to making sense over just buying it off the peg. Even if you change a few parts and sell everything else off, you'll still likely be better off buying off the peg.

I've not had a brand new complete bike since the 90s. I chop and change, some parts follow me to the next frame, others go. I've only had one brand new frame in that time too, copious used ones though.
Click to expand...
I'll pay you to be my Bob the builder
 
lawrence281 said:
Then teach me on how to optimize money for parts, so I'm getting the best deal.
Senpai :p
Click to expand...
The only real way to do that is to know exactly what you want, have the time to surf around for the right prices (can take months & waiting for things like Black Friday) combined with the knowledge and tools to do all the work yourself.

You can get some amazing deals on second hand parts, mostly due to people buying complete bikes and swapping things out, or those who just replace whole bikes, rather than parts. But it is an utter minefield! :)

Saytan's example above is a prime one - many times you can't buy the parts cheap enough to even get near to an off the shelf builds RRP, then there's deals on them and cashback and trade ins and and... ;)

EDIT: might find this useful (as i went into depth about saddles above): https://roadcyclinguk.com/gear/buying-guides/six-things-affect-comfort-saddle.html

https://roadcyclinguk.com/gear/buying-guides/cheap-road-bike-sale-deals.html
 
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Roady said:
The only real way to do that is to know exactly what you want, have the time to surf around for the right prices (can take months & waiting for things like Black Friday) combined with the knowledge and tools to do all the work yourself.

You can get some amazing deals on second hand parts, mostly due to people buying complete bikes and swapping things out, or those who just replace whole bikes, rather than parts. But it is an utter minefield! :)

Saytan's example above is a prime one - many times you can't buy the parts cheap enough to even get near to an off the shelf builds RRP, then there's deals on them and cashback and trade ins and and... ;)

EDIT: might find this useful (as i went into depth about saddles above): https://roadcyclinguk.com/gear/buying-guides/six-things-affect-comfort-saddle.html

https://roadcyclinguk.com/gear/buying-guides/cheap-road-bike-sale-deals.html
Click to expand...
The link on the right seat is really useful information, thank you.also from the list of bikes, only worth one I could see myself buying is this.
https://www.rutlandcycling.com/3714...1a6080571c8270876e84&referrer=affiliatewindow
Prefer to have a blue frame bike, since it's my favourite colour.. but it seems hard to come by. Not so popular.
 
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