Originally Posted by
mdilthey
Almost all customers see bikes as a unit. For every bike-savvy tourist that buys a LHT, there are nine bike-illiterate weekend warriors and college kids buying one to putz around 3x a year.
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You can do a built-to-order LHT- surly sells frames, and bike shops are happy to facilitate. You lose the collective bargaining power Surly uses to get components at 30-40% less on a complete build than if you buy them individually, so your complete bike will cost 30-40% more.
Forgive my ignorance of current bikes, but are that many touring-type base models sold to people that putz around 3x a year? Seems like a costly purchase for something that isn't being used on a regular basis.
As to the rest, would it cost me 30-40% more? Presumably, the parts I am going to add cost no more whether the frame came with other parts that I paid for or not. To me, it sounds like I would just have the same add-on cost, but a higher base cost. I guess I could always strip and sell the OEM parts and make back some money, but it still sounds like paying for something I am never going to use. I'm genuinely curious, BTW, I've never bought a new bike and immediately swapped parts. It just seems more logical to me that if more than one or two things were getting taken off and replaced you would start with the frame and build up.