I would be another vote against 650b, that makes no sense to me, though there are set-ups possible where you can run two tire sizes, particularly with discs. But also with calipers. 26 is the off-road, and third world champ, and 700/27 are the better rollers. Now that the 26er guys are all building 29ers, I wonder why anyone uses anything other than 700c. The only advantage to 650b, is if you have some frame size constraint, or packing constraint.

Component wise if you can get a Rohloff in a Phil case, that would be great, otherwise it is pretty much impossible to build a nice Rohloff bike, at least by touring standards. You can build techy nice I guess. I like that, zip ties to organize the cables trash, and a nice soviet paint scheme.

My custom has the following components:

- Dirt Drop bars

- Microshift bar ends,

- Brake levers not chosen yet, I have two different sets in the running

- I think it is currently hard to get nice looking discs, but now that they are running them in Xcross, that may change. My bike has neo retros on it, but you need to check the fork clearance before you choose. Fat spacings can use the Neos, but the other sizes can actually cost you stopping power. Pauls don't really increase stopping power, the best bet there are some NOS pedersens.

- Everything Paul one can put on a bike, Seat post, half moons, levers for the third brake or the xcross levers. Thingies for lights and cameras, etc... I'd like to get some Nos deraileurs, just for the fun of it.

- My hubs are mostly White, but I did that so they would match the eno cranks I had on the Rohloff, I was going through a touring groupo thing at the time... Phil are pretty much the only people making touring hubs for real, including the internal gear guys. The White hub is nice but the rigging angles are really high on the Cassette side, so if you are going crazy cassette and chain sizes, it makes sense, but for an 8 not so much. Really pretty hub, and a Ti shell for decent strength compared to shimano.

- Cranks are Sugino, and White eno.

-BB is White, but Phil is more standard. White makes a Ti BB, which saves weight in a place where it won't hurt you, other than in the wallet.

-Pedals, I went with the White. I badly want to try the Flypaper pedals, but the cranks they run, are not to my taste.

- Seat, Brooks B-17. To get this right, you need to know your position, then get your custom bike built so it can do this with a Zero offset post, or if you go conventional geometry you will need an offset, which really doesn't make any sense on a non-racing bike. But it would be tragic to get a custom bike then get it set-up so that all the adjustments were maxed out to the rear, to put your Brooks on.

- I want to go with Nokon housings, but so far haven't chosen the frame paint, so I am not jumping on them yet. These will improve cable performance, and look very cool. You can get anodized cable ends that look very similar for 5 bucks for 50, so the price of the housings seems pretty crazy.

- Velocity rims in silver. Buy a few sets if you get the expensive hubs, that way you can rebuild the wheels with new rims whenever they wear out, and don't have to worry about the company changing the specs, which seems like an annual event.

- Wheelsmith spokes.

- Customs these days need Chris King headsets.

Start with the luggage, then the racks, then build the frame. You want your racks and luggage to fit level and perfect on the frame and you want substantial fittings, and 6mm bolts. It is really easy to spend custom money to build a stock frame. You need to really know what every single component does on your ride, and how to tweak it to be better, and what frame stuff needs to be there for that to happen. For instance, the pedals you choose affect the BB height. The bags you use affect the CS length. The bars you choose affect top tube length. The drive train you choose affects frame dimensions, and so on. You buy all the parts first, then build the frame, not the other way around.

Those Tomii bikes are pretty, but the website didn't convince me they were touring bike specialists. Anyone can build you a 2K LHT, and then send it out for expensive paint.