Avispa

Just buy the frame and parts you want and ask the shop what they ask for putting it together.
Then you can buy parts from everwhere or same place. Or, you do it yourself and learn in the process,... if you aren't skilled enough right now.

gsa103

It's obvious the OP hasn't actually bought a car in the last few years.

Bikes are far, far, far easier to swap components that a car. Most bikes can get saddle, wheels, etc swapped at cost. With a car, "oh you want the larger engine? That's only available with the Option 2B package, which includes upgraded stereo, leather interior and spoiler. That will be an extra $10k."

Or there's the BMW/Porsche model. "Oh you wanted a steering wheel...that's a $1500 option..."
Seriously, Car & Driver recently did a comparo between a Stingray and Porsche, and the Porsche OPTIONS were more than the sticker price for the Stingray.

If you want the car buying experience, you can buy a bike or car on Craigslist, its the same experience for both. Same bs sellers, flaky people, etc...

Agent Cooper

Others have already stated this but I'll add my two cents.

OP, I'm not really sure how you're coming to your conclusion. What I get from you post is that your main issue is with customization. But that's not really a problem with bikes.

Most bikes are offered at different price points/group levels, etc. And bikes are an item that is highly customizable by the user aftermarket, I'd say maybe more so than cars are.

Any decent bike shop is happy to help you customize your bike at the point of sale, and will swap out any parts you want based on fit or customer preference.

So I'm not sure where you're going with this. I imagine it may be possible sometime in the future to go to a bicycle dealer or manufacturer website and custom order a bike with the model, color, frame size and groupset of you choice in advance, have it made to order and pick it up in a week at the shop, almost the same way you'd order a certain package and trim on a new car. That might be the closest thing to what you're getting at.

But as I and others have said, you can already do all the customization you want right now anyway.

MRT2

With all those on these forums complaining about what a bike comes with and the fact that many will change out parts when buying a new bike, why doesn't the manufacturer offer either a few packages to upgrade your bike (and the LBS get a bonus for up selling/installing) or why not just sell a frame and a groupset installed and leave it to the LBS to finish the bike to whatever price point they wish?

Most bike manufacturers do offer a variety of packages, from entry level to midrange level components and fork to totl everything.

How many of you have purchased a new bike and either upgraded it soon after or purchased different parts at the time you purchased the new bike?
I usually go mostly with the stock components and see how things go, but I have changed out saddle, pedals, tires and in one case, a front chainring. Saddle is about comfort and most stock saddles suck, I prefer clipless pedals to platforms or toe clips, if the stock tires are so so, I replace with a preferred model, and in the case of the chainring, that was my wife's bike, and the stock 42 tooth chainring was just a bit too tall for her use, so we switched to a 39 tooth model, which better suited her pedaling style.

If a bike really needs to be 'tuned' through alternate parts to really fit a rider, why sell the whole package in the first place?
Because a lot of people are perfectly happy with the stock components, and not everybody is as obsessive about their bikes as the folks on bike forums.

What does the bike shop do with the removed parts?
They either give them back to the customer or they keep them in a parts bin to use on future repair jobs.

A perfect example is the saddle. Some fit the one that comes with the bike, many do not. Why waste the cash on something you are going to change out anyway
Again, not everybody is as obsessive as us bike forum folks. But you have a point. They could just sell bikes without saddles, pedals or wheels or tires.

CliffordK

I thought that was just a given.

Nearly all bike ads show young, very fit individuals riding bikes. Rarely dumpy old men struggling to keep the pedals going.

So, I was sure buying a new bike would give me that 20 yr old racer look

Leinster

https://youtu.be/89hkmQKx9p4

Trailroaster

IMHO (I can be quite wrong but is what I believe). Manufacturers should stop wasting money (and making the buyer too) on putting generic things like saddle and pedals. Those two things are changed on a high percentage of times bike before gets out of the shop.

Part of bike sale by the vendor should be to add to the bike a suitable saddle if buyer has not a personal preference same for pedals. Still don't understand why on 2015 bike vendors still insist on bundling those two parts who are very personal (or physical) preference. I don't remember on the past 15-20 years a bike that came out from stock with a saddle who I felt fine over it.

Maybe this is more feasible on some kind of bikes, not on general (wholesale models). Why they don't do it?

WalksOn2Wheels

Pretty much any aluminum bike with 105 or above, or any carbon bike, does not come with pedals. They just don't. Most manufacturers try to put on a decent saddle, but realize that saddles are very individual to the rider. A lot of high end bikes come with high end saddles, but if it doesn't fit you, it doesn't fit you. In that case, the dealer can swap the saddle, give you full retail (which will be decent for a higher end saddle, even on house brands like Specialized and Bontrager), and then you don't have to explain to the newer rider why he needs to spend 100 more dollars on a bike just to sit on it.

Next?

RPK79

Why can't I buy a bike like I buy a pizza? Plug in what I want on a website and then have it delivered to my door 15 minutes later...

indyfabz

Just buy a custom bike. You will have more options than you would when buying a car. But I am sure you know that.

Trailroaster

No problem on pedals. Because a saddle is so personal matter, bikes with 105 and over should not come with saddle sorry. Anyone who plans to spends such kind of dough thou' not need to get the saddle the manufacturer decided to put on such bike.

I'm planning to get a new road bike on 4T15: A Giant Defy Advanced Pro. You name it, it sure it carries: Carbon frame, full Ultegra Di2, RS785 brake disks and such... but my pet peeve is why I need to luge with a fizik saddle on a almost 4000Euro bike if my butt prefeers other?. Why need to put into a situation to the dealer to buy the saddle who I want and switch for the one who came with the bike?

WalksOn2Wheels

Trek Project One. Next?

Oh, 15 minutes? Nah, you need a few more weeks....

seymour1910

and if it's the pizza hut policy after 30 mins it's free.

BillyD

. . . or air conditioning.

WalksOn2Wheels

1) A GOOD dealer will give you retail credit for a new saddle swap OR you can sell it online as a new take-off and get basically what you need for your other saddle. Ask your dealer about it if you don't already have a saddle ready to install.

2) I'm going to go ahead and assume you've never worked in a bike shop. We sell LOTS of 105 equipped aluminum bikes to people that haven't ridden a bike since they were 12. It's hard enough to explain why that bike doesn't come with pedals, much less a saddle. You're welcome to go ahead and tell that customer that he needs to pay X amount for a bike AND spend at least 100 bucks on a quality saddle. And while we keep the bikes without pedals on the wall, it's super easy to throw on plastic ones for a test ride. With as many seatpost sizes and saddle rail clamps, etc. that come on different bikes, it's going to be an ordeal putting on a "test" saddle on a busy weekend in addition to test pedals. Plus, imagine staring at a wall of bikes without saddles.

Now if a customer brought in their favorite saddle, sure, we'll throw that on for them for a test ride, but that's happened a total of 1 (one) time, and in that case it was a nutty customer on a hybrid who insisted we install his weird, noseless, split "perch" while he lectured us on why every single saddle that we personally rode on and sold was wrong.

Agent Cooper

Seriously, I can imagine a time not too far off where buying a stock bike at a certain price level from any of the big manufacturers will be like buying a Project One. You go online and pick color, groupset, etc - all custom and it's in the shop ready to go in a week.

Bah Humbug

Both bikes and cars are sold as packages. Often, both of them are annoyingly-packaged: not everyone wants the same gearing at a given level of bike, not everyone wants the same drivetrain company, not everyone needs a new set of junky Aksiums, not everyone wants nav alongside their leather seats, not everyone wants a ski passthrough with their heated seats, and not everyone wants junky all-season tires they have to take off and resell. Sadly, the realities of mass manufacturing mean that that's what we get, and it's probably still cheaper (though more annoying) than having everything assembled to custom instructions every time.

Fly2High

When I purchased a new bike, it still took a week before the LBS had it ready. I did not ask for anything to be changed. It wasn't until later that I started investigating alternate parts, saddle, pedals, wheels, etc.

what would be the difference if it was custom and took a week?

How long does it take when you ask for an off the shelf to be altered?

I would guess it always takes a week....

Clyde1820

If the shops were to assemble 100% of the "factory" bikes they sell, and all the variations in "packages" were guaranteed to work with the basic frame/fork assemblies, then I'd agree it ought to be as simple as a bike company and a shop agreeing to have the particular "package" of components on-hand for a given level of that bike.

About the closest that the big bike makers seem to do is Trek's 0/1/2/3/4 naming scheme, where the different level works out to a different grade of components.

I'm sure it's a matter of the basic math of what it would take to have such an inventory of loose parts. Can't see how it would be cost-prohibitive to do it via a "package" arrangement, where a small number of combinations of components could be produced that would work across a variety of frame/fork assemblies. Perhaps if the bike makers stepped up to offer "packaged" component combinations sort of like newspaper an magazine companies did it (at one time, perhaps they still do), where excess unsold copies were "bought back" by the company.

Don't run a shop, myself, so I'm unfamiliar with many of the limitations in the industry that would preclude such a thing, beyond people's comfort with the status quo. But one would think that with barcode and computer technology, and with the fairly fixed number of variations on frame/fork assemblies offered, there ought to be a way to rapidly combine component packages at the factory in order to more efficiently supply shops based on such customizing. Since a worker bee is grabbing a given component anyway, for fulfilling an order, it shouldn't be any more work to grab the next (uprated) component instead.

FrozenK

That is just going to make the bikes more expensive (as you trade assembly line for individual build) and will also make bike prices highly variable because each shop will charge a diferentes price for bike assembly based on their labor and overhead costs.

This isn't rocket science people. If you want a customized build, you buy a frame and parts and have it assembled or assemble yourself. If you don't want to do that, you buy a preassembled bike.

Clyde1820

Several options were mentioned there.

Which makes them necessarily more expensive, and why?

FrozenK

If what you are proposing is having the bikes shipped to a shop as frames with different component packages and then the shop builds the bikes, I already told you why it would be more expensive: individual assembly vs assembly line. You may end with some shops that could charge less than a factory would (small operations with very low overhead) but in general, you won't.

CliffordK

Yes, why can't I buy a custom Lamborghini without seats? I just have to have the sheep skin covered seats from the old run-down Honda!!!!

I suppose I would find it disturbing to go into a bike shop and be told that my $2000 bike came without a seat. And, I could test ride it if I wanted to, but I can never sit down while riding (oh, and I can't pedal either).

Personally I will ride just about any seat. Nothing is perfect, nothing is too bad. But an alternative might be to put a $100 "seat credit" as part of the price of the bike. But then it gets confusing if one only wants a $30 seat.

I bought a used Bike Friday recently. It had cheap plastic pedals on it. I asked the seller about it, and he said that he had taken the clipless pedals off and thrown those on for a test ride. We had to disassemble the bike for transport, so I told him to just keep his pedals. Perhaps they'll go on the next bike he sells.

JPeters

I think it's worth remembering this is an enthusiast's forum, where most people like to tinker and mess around with their bikes. Where form and performance are more important that simple function. I'm sure if you went on such a car forum you'd have just as many people pushing you to buy the next most-expensive model, and make various adjustments to it.

Bah Humbug

I don't want the stock bike seat at all; I'll be using an Adamo or SLR Superflow. I won't be using their narrow wheels. I won't be using their cassette, and I'd prefer Q-rings. What's unreasonable about that?

I'm sure Lamborghini would be happy to sell a car without seats if I wanted to put in racing seats. Again, my point there was more about the meaningless bundling (can't get leather without nav, or vice versa) or the junky tires that came on, for example, my ex's Fit, and had to be swapped immediately. Those are certainly frustrating situations.