There may be a greater difference on the wheels than I portrayed, but I happen to like the wheelset on the Mendota. Well, except for them having Presta valves. I know they are a bit heavy and they are just Bontragers with a list of $280/set. But I've ridden bikes with them on several occasions and liked them. And I know two guys who raced them in cyclo races and they worked great for them.

They are same wheels as found on the $1650 Lemond Poprad Disc cyclo bike. And on the $1700 Trek Portland.

Your preferences are what counts in choosing your bike. I just don't like low spoke count wheels. XT hubs with Salsa rims and 32 DT db spokes would be a big plus for me. That's the kind of wheel I would build as an upgrade. Trek and others are putting wheels on most of their road and cyclocross bikes that I would automatically replace. They may be plenty strong, but I wouldn't trust them.

Tom. Have you contemplated building your own from a bare frame?

At this point you have reams of data about size and fit and prefered components. Your more than halfway there.

maddmaxx, where have you been in this thread? Building from a bare frame is where I started in post #1 and where much of the discussion has focused.

I know of where you speak. I pursued this very issue with both the owner and a mechanic at the LBS selling the Mendota last fall. Both of these guys are straight shooters and have criticized some of their own bikes to me in the past. I've been a customer of that store for 15+ years.

They told me that these particular 24-spoke (blade spokes) wheels have been nigh bulletproof for them. They never need trued, they never fail. The owner recommends them to 300 pound riders (I'm 210) because he is so confident that he won't have to deal with warranty or service issues.

He wasn't claiming that they were the lightest, highest performance wheels at all. But he looked me right in the eyes and stated that he was 100% confident that I would never have a problem with these wheels. He was very surprised that they are included on the $969 Mendota, as they aren't found on any other sub-$1500 Trek.

I agree that the wheels on the complete Ala Carte bike are better, but I'm unsure if they are just more overkill over a wheel that is already good enough.

Oops........my mind wandered there.........I was contemplating trivets!

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.

Part of the potential for saving money is to treat the build as a project. Get your lists of parts in order including alternates. Have solid price estimates attached along with where those prices are from and then shop like crazy, buying parts when and where they come in under your estimates.

For example, you may have the best price on parts from XYZ but in another month or so, XYZ will have its traditional spring sale. As long as XYZ doesn't raise the price of your parts for the weekend of the sale then you will do well to wait. (There are shops in this business that do just that to improve their performance).

Option 2 is to price the same parts as take-offs (from a bike breaker who parts out complete bikes) from some of the more reputable Ebay houses. (Or Jenson USA who are very good for take-offs).

Option 3 is to price last years parts instead of this years although I suspect that you have already done this with the X.9 stuff based on your price. I am presently awaiting my brand new PG980 cassette from Cambria at """"34.95""""" because it is a new 2006 piece. In this case I have been looking at several high end SRAM cassettes for quite a while on Ebay and through several IBS's. When I saw this price I knew how much lower it was that all other options.

Once the box is full then you can negotiate with the LBS for the build.


What I ment to say in the earlier post is why don't "you" try the build yourself. If you have a problem or a difficult piece of the puzzel to do, the LBS will still be there to perform that task. This looks like one of those once in a lifetime (yea right I know the N+1 rule) builds and you can make it completely yours.

Option 4 is to look into buying a "build kit" as opposed to each individual component. These can be simply the major drivetrain components or a complete "everything but the frame" kit. Several of the parts distributors that work with your LBS offer various kits at a significant savings compared to individual components. Most allow a certain number of deletions or variances from the standard kit.

Then again, other than saddle, tires and maybe a crankset swap, I would think the Salsa Ala Carte complete bike would have pretty close to what you are wanting at a price I don't think you could beat. You could ride it with the steel fork and change to the cabon fork later, if you still wanted to.

I'm not going to argue with this, as it is pretty much my stated position from post #4 in this thread.

Me building the bike is an option that is off the table. Let's say I go with the Gunnar and assemble $2000 of parts. I can fight my way through installing part after part, adjusting each one, readjusting after the next step. Who knows how long it would take and what I would hack up. While I don't mind doing some simple things, I don't even enjoy doing some of this stuff ... like installing derailleurs, running cables, adjusting chain length, installing brakes. My LBS will assemble and tune all of them for $100. To me that sounds like a great deal!

Of all of the tempting aspects of which bike to purchase, and constructing a build kit of good deals on parts, I feel no temptation at all to build it myself.

I'm leaving that part of this process to DG!

My primary concern about the Salsa is its geometry. I know the 17.5" Mendota fits me well. The 17.5" Rock Tour seems to be very good. The 2007 Salsa 17" frame looks good. But of their '08 models, I'd have to go with their 16" frame, as the top tube on the 18" is way too long. I'd have to ride it with a lot of seat post exposed and I'm concerned that I would have a more difficult time getting the correct height on the handlebars.

I know the Mendota is fine, but it has a longer headtube than the other two. If I go the Rock Tour route, I would have them cut the steerer tube extra long, so that I could play around with it for a while and could have it re-cut later once I found where I wanted to be. On the 16" Ala Carte complete bike, the steerer tube is pre-cut and it has a shorter headtube. I don't want to drop $1500 on a bike and then have to use a stem extender.

Thus I have reservations about ordering one, sight unseen. May have to see where my travels take me in coming months and plot those against Salsa stocking dealers.

You might want to press the LBS about offering you a good deal on a build kit they can get from someone like Hawley. If they build many custom bikes, they should know all about where to get the best deals. If you are buying a frame and having them do the build, maybe they can cut you some slack on the build kit markup.

I've started building my build kit ... using the JensonUSA site, as they have customizable build kits that you can tweak, save, and print. Prices aren't too bad, but that is secondary right now.

My present kit contains many of the parts mentioned before in this thread: Avid BB7 disc brakes, SRAM X.9 RD & FD, SRAM X.0 twistshifter, SRAM PG950 11-26 cassette - didn't go with 11-32/34 because I'm leaning toward a MTB crankset of 44/32/22. Don't need a 32t in the back when I have a 22t in the front.

I already own stems, handlebars, saddles. Will probably go for a carbon seat post, more for vibration damping than weight savings.

Haven't decided on the crankset yet. It doesn't have to be a high end crank, I won't be pushing it that hard. Considering the new Shimano LX or going with any year of XT. There are also FSA options and Jenson has some Race Face's on closeouts. I've seen a lot of positive reviews of both the Race Faces and FSA cranks, but the safe choice seems to be Shimano.

Biggest area of indecision is the wheelset. I'm not hard on wheels. In fact, I've never had a wheel repair of any kind, not even a truing. My '87 Bridgestone still has the original wheels, spokes, etc., and has never be trued (and it is true). OTOH, I don't want to get something like a Gunnar and then put on crap wheels.

So I'm looking for advice on 26" wheelsets, and am open to suggestions on the cranksets too. I could follow the example of the Salsa Ala Carte and go with 32h XT wheels. For example, these:
https://www.jensonusa.com/store/produ...+Wheelset.aspx

Or better yet, these:
https://www.jensonusa.com/store/produ...+26+Wheel.aspx
https://www.jensonusa.com/store/produ...ail+Wheel.aspx

Or lighter weight, 24 spoke wheels like these:
https://www.jensonusa.com/store/produ...+Wheelset.aspx

Of all of these, I guess I'm leaning toward the XT/Mavic 717 set.

The crankset I have targeted for myself this year is the Truvativ Firex team with external bottom bracket cups. See it at pricepoint.

Carbon seatposts have always been a problem for me as they tend to be slippery and to slide down. One gets nervous about overtightening the bolt and then............and then..............they get scratched. Ooooooo a scratch in my CF.......will I die?

I just avoid the whole thing and stick with an aluminium seatpost.

The wheelset of the year for last year for me were the Mavic Crossrides at the unbelievable closeout price of $150 (far cheaper than I can build my own) free shipping from Jensen. They were however the previous years model with rim brake rims on disk hubs. After a year of use they have held up perfectly. I don't know how aero the bladed spokes are but Squirrels tremble at their approach.

The Mavic Crossrides were on my link above as the lighter weight 24 spoke wheelset. I think they would work, although many recommend a 32 spoke wheel.

I have a Truvativ Stylo crankset in my present build set, it has the external GXP bearing cups. I don't know why I didn't mention it when I was writing about cranksets. I looked at the Firex, but all they had at Jenson was 175mm and I need 170mm (or 165mm). So those are on my consideration list.

Do not worry about the Mavic Crossrides. I bought a set 8? years ago. and they are my wheel of choice on the Bianchi. Have to admit that I had a problem with them in that the freehub went too free after a particularly wet ride Not after but during. Not enjoyable haveing a freehub that turns without engaging all the time.

Then I put them at the back of the Garage to rust up. 2 years later and I took them to the LBS. New bearings and new pawls and they are still being used. They have taken every rock and Downhill on the Hills that I can throw at them and All I have done is to get them retrued every year or so.

The crossrides appear to be brutally strong even though low spoke count (I know, I was worried about that also)

Once you've gotton your tongue back in your mouth after the first 5 minutes of looking at the way the spokes are attached at the hub (looks much more impressive in person) you may begin to wonder about why we are still using elbowed spokes at all.

Well, right now, using Jenson and Performance together, using the lower price of the two, I'm up to:

Gunnar frame: $975
Carbon fork: $275
Components: $1000

And that's not including the saddle, stem, or handlebar that I've already got.

Geez Louise, that's $2250 plus $100 for assembly for $2350. Will have to compile an eBay special list next.

But it is a very nice bike.

I guess $2350 for the Gunnar option is in line with paying $1470 for the Salsa Ala Carte bike. That's a $880 difference. The Salsa frame & cro-mo fork sells for $550, the Gunnar w/carbon fork is $1250. So that explains $700 of the $880 difference. The rest of the difference is due to choices I made in the components.

The Salsa bumps up to $1800 if I upgrade it to the same carbon fork, seatpost, tires, and shifters.

And then there is the sub-$1100 Gary Fisher Mendota option.

Take a look at Price Point

1. Firex 3.3 170mm $109
2. X.9 twist shifters and RD combo $120
3. Avid BB7 front or rear $50 each
4. Avid Speed Dial 7 levers $22 each
5. Mavic Crossride UB set $200

All are 2007 models.

Sorry all others, please ignore this advertisement

Wow! Just constructed my entire set on Price Point and it is $250 less than Jenson!

Both are quality internet bike shops. On any given day you will do well at either. This is what I ment though about having a list..........checking it twice........... and then waiting while you shop a little more. Good buys await those who are patient.

Price Point has the Shimano XT hub / Mavic 717 wheelset at essentially the same price as the Mavic Crossride Disc set, whereas on Jenson the XT/717 set is $100 more.

Given the same price, wouldn't you consider the XT/717 the better way to go?

Your call, one is the more traditional way to go, the other suits my mechanic fancy. I did however score the crossrides at 50 less than these however and I would retrue either set right out of the box.

My head says that the way you are going, the XT/717 should be your choice.