Originally Posted by
Santaria
Sig-worthy. Even the best "quality" custom builds should be done by mechanics. Even though I know how to put my own stuff together now, it was something I learned by earning my bones sitting in a bike shop having my knuckles cracked, getting dirty, frustrated and having someone there to explain it to me. I did it for free because that was the cost of having an experienced bike mechanic show me. Trust me, I'd rather always have the LBS build up my bikes now that I have some idea of the amount of frustration that goes into finding out that crank you've drooled over for the last six months, saving, eating cans of refried beans and never drinking a beer for had a Q factor that was just a tad too small for your BB, only to have to go and do hours of double-checking to make sure each part not only is what you want, but that it is compatible. I go to my LBS - tell them what I want - they ballpark it for me and if something goes wrong - they're going to fix it.
/caseclosed
That's one way of doing it and certainly the least stressful IF you can trust your LBS to do good job. I had such a bad experience of the shop not even fixing the things I specifically pointed out (such as the practically inoperational rear brake - which you do need on a freewheel bike in the wintertime - plus selling me a new rear derailleur when they should have straightened the hanger...) and also generally botching the service (mismatched bb/crankset, rearwheel QR open when I took the bike for a test ride, I could go on...) that I decided it's best to learn enough so that I can do most of the things myself and at least evaluate the quality of work on stuff I can't actually do on my own. So even if you have the LBS do all the work, it is a good thing to know enough to be able to tell when you're not getting what you paid for (still would like to learn to build wheels, though).
Building a bike from scratch is going to be expensive, but if you have patience and start with 2nd hand stuff (both frame and parts) it's not necessarily too expensive, considering the amount of learning involved. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have one bike to ride already, though.