Originally Posted by
gypsy_hipster
The things I'm most confused about are seat posts, headsets, stems... can you really cut down on weight a lot by buying these components brad-new, or should I be scrounging around in the basement of my favorite used bike store?
My bike shop sold me a brand new aluminum seat post for $10. The catch was that it didn't save me any weight because the post was twice as long as the old steel one it replaced. But i needed a longer seat post, couldn't get my seat high enough. the key on that sort of stuff is that if you got friends that are seriously into it, they've probably got aluminum parts from when they upgraded to carbon so see what they got.