Chi_Z

full build gravel bike in general are hard to sell, people who are buying already have either a road bikes or a CX bike and bunch of spare parts. People just want a frameset and migrate components over

shoota 

I don't think that's true. People like us on the forums are like that but we make up like 1% of the population. The vast majority of people have no idea how to build a bike.

rosefarts

If you get even a super entry level bike, like Sora or something, and build a pair of nice wheels + supple tires, it'll probably feel like a more high end ride than a much better bike with crappy wheels. Now imagine how much better that would be on a 105 bike.

A 1600gm wheelset is fundamentally different than a 2100gm set. Night and day.

Id go as far as to say that for most recreational riders, 1/2 the price of your bike ought to be in wheels and tires.

Don't hand wring over components if you have stock wheels (almost all stock wheels suck).

mstateglfr 

?

I wouldnt say this forum is an accurate representation of general gravel riding and it skews more enthusiast, and even on here there is a healthy mix of frame built vs bought stock build. Out in realville, I would expect there to be a significantly higher % of people who buy already built frames vs building off a frame.
I also havent found a high % of people to want to build and maintain their bikes due to the overall higher cost of buying retain for individual parts, the cost of tools, the lack of knowledge on how to build, and the time it takes to build.

Perhaps I am way off on this, but it sure doesnt seem like it...

softreset

In 5 years working at a shop (part-time / weekends) the amount of people who came in with either a frame set or components wanting the other "half" was 1 out of every 75 or so customers looking at bikes. Not to mention, normally the people who came in wouldn't even buy the stuff from us, because they would buy it online for less. But when it came time to build it or tweak it because they didn't know what they were doing... they lined up like we were giving stuff away.

gus6464

For custom builds does a shop make more money from the frame or the other components? Like say I walked in with my own frame and wanted them to order everything else.

softreset

A lot of variables, honestly. For example, this past weekend someone brought in an F10 frame set they bought from RA but spent almost $9000 on an ENVE wheelset, full SRAM AXS group and some other carbon bits. There's very poor margins on Pinarello for a shop like ours as a non-stocking dealer. But as a top tier SRAM dealer the margins are better. So in our case, selling him everything but the frame versus selling him just the frame was a much better payday for the shop.

We sell a lot of Shimano Di2 groups but rarely mechanicals (people bring them in from online). Most people don't want to deal with wiring the bike and making sure everything is precisely dialed in.

Most of our high end bike sales (Pinarello, some Colnago) are always done piece by piece. BMCs occasionally, but most people buy the 'premade' from them.

Chi_Z

you said it yourself, people who builds their own bikes would not walk into a bike shop, so of course all the people you see are buying full builds. Also just in general, the prices from Chain Reaction, Merlin, Ribble etc makes buying anything from LBS very hard.

softreset

Huh? I said 1 out of every 75. We'd do 300+ walk-ins on a Saturday. So that's still about 3-4 people a day.

People who build their own bikes absolutely walk-in to a shop, they're just far less than people looking for full builds.

In many cases, the prices from the UK retailers (especially with regards to Shimano) are actually better than the price shop employees got on stuff. Plus there was no limit!

dwmckee

Man, I'd buy the Jamis Renegade. It is maybe $600 less that the niner and has a lot more pedigree than the Raleigh. What ever niner says, there is no proprietary magic to a steel frame, they are great if well made and if the geometry has been evolved over several generations and they spec good steel, anyone can make a great steel frame. Jamis has been making and selling steel frames longer than anyone else selling bikes in the US (since 1905) And the rest of the components are made by Shimano or Sram, etc. Niner does have a nicer paint job but if your bike is appropriately muddy no one will ever see that...

mstateglfr 

?

Jamis bikes are well thought out and whatnot, but come again?