Originally Posted by Highcyclist

I'm buying the Surly LHT as my first really quality bike, and my lbs has offered to build it up with components 'comparable' the complete bike from Surly, for the same price. I really know next to nothing about components, but the complete build looks great to me, and seems to be well received on this forum. Should I wait for the complete bike (Surly will only say it will ship 'sometime in April'), or let the lbs build it up (with my input, which is currently somewhat uninformed)?

I'll be using this as an all around bike, but I may use it for touring in the future. What changes would you make to the build for a similar price point?

Thanks in advance for any responses.