Going back to this ... of course there will be little "building" on my part. I'm not going to assemble a bike. I might pay my LBS to do it from a bag of parts.

I am putting together a list of parts, pricing what I could get them for from eBay and on-line stores.

One LBS told me that if I purchased the frame & all of the parts from them, that they would build the bike for free.

Another one told me that if I purchased a Gunnar frame through them, and brought in all of the rest of the parts, they would build it for $100. I could have them order the Salsa frame too, if I went that route, as Salsa will ship through any dealer.

So far the second option looks cheaper, because the prices that LBS#1 quoted me on parts were extremely high, most of them about 2X what I would pay off of eBay. For example for SRAM X.9 RD, FD, and Twistshifters, they quoted me $300. I can get those for about $150.

I want to come up with a complete price for a Gunnar Rock Tour before I make a decision. The frame & a carbon fork would set me back about $1250 right out of the gate. That's one reason why I'm stepping back to reconsider the Gary Fisher Mendota bike, which is $969 complete with the same fork that I would be using on the Gunnar. And if I had the LBS upgrade the Mendota X.5/X.7 group to X.9, it would probably add about $100 to the Mendota, making it $1069 with the same fork and group set as I would have on the Gunnar.

I would rather be riding on the Gunnar, but at some point one has to look at it and decide if that difference is worth paying another grand.