Originally Posted by
Cyclesafe
What you deem necessities, others deem unnecessary. What works for you is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what is demanded by the cycling public. I'm afraid that unless a couple of ten thousand people see things exactly your way, you're stuck with building up a custom bike. Manufacturers make money either by high prices or high volume.
99% of cycling public in USA are sunny Sunday bike-path amblers. Thanks to such folks we have a huge variety or racing & mountain bikes few of which are particularly practical. I see your point about the price/volume deal but OTOH I can see a company selling 'my bike' thru the internet to save on distribution costs. Most tourers are capable of assembling a bike. Just today I saw a guy riding a Motobecane racer, I'd bet he bought it from BikesDirect.com.
When I was a courier in the 80's I saw a lot of other couriers switch to mountain bikes for a comfier ride over bad central-city streets. Of course the fat tires were slower but since production touring/road frames weren't designed for bad roads one had to accept the trade-off. Now we see a good deal of tourers switching to "expedition bikes" even though must such tourers aren't really going to bounce over boulders in Outer Mongolia, they just want a comfy ride & good brakes for the varying conditions one normally encounters.