The Benefits of Buying a Custom Bike
There are many things you need to consider when you decide to buy a new bike. What type of riding will you do? Where will you be riding mostly? Do you plan on racing, touring, or bikepacking? Once you’ve answered these basic questions, you’ll start wanting to look at brands and see what they offer.
That’s where a site like Wrench Science can be a lot of help since we carry a wide variety of bike brands for all disciplines. We also take a lot of care to describe each brand and model so that you can learn more about the bikes to help you decide which you think will work best for you. We also offer the option of customizing your bike with your choice of compatible components, wheels, and groupsets.
The benefits of buying a custom bike are extensive, since it will give you the chance to choose everything from handlebar width to crank length, which is often not an option when buying the pre-built models offered by the manufacturers. We highly recommend going the custom bike buying route because a personalized bike fit is the most direct route to cycling nirvana.
Custom Doesn’t Have to Mean Exclusive
Even if you are a first-time buyer or you don’t want to spend over $10,000 on a bicycle, you can order a bike customized with components. The benefits of buying a custom bike are not exclusively for expert cyclists or people able to spend vast quantities of money. With the help of tools like the Wrench Science Bike Fit System and Bike Builder, you can figure out what bike measurements will be right for your body. And once you know that, then it is just a process of plug-and-play with our Bike Builder to create the perfect complete bike for you.
The movement towards bike brands offering a selection of prebuilds to customers was certainly a business decision that simplifies the process for the buyer. In theory, it should also help keep the price of the purchase down since you would be getting the benefit of whatever package deal a large bike manufacturer could rustle up from component OEM deals. In reality, though, the overall savings are likely to be soaked up by the after-purchase shopping you will have to do when you realize you need to replace cranks that are too long or handlebars that are too wide.
When you go through the process of customizing your bike build, you can make those types of sizing choices from the beginning, ensuring that your bike will fit you perfectly from the first ride.
Enjoy Your Choice of Groupsets
If you have already been looking through bikes on shop floors, you may have noticed that you are rarely seeing any bikes equipped with anything but Shimano and SRAM. You’d be forgiven for thinking those are the only two bike components manufactured in the world. But you’d be mistaken. They are simply the two brands that have been very successful at making OEM deals with frame manufacturers.
However, if you want to buy a bike with Campagnolo, Rotor, or any of the other smaller manufactures, then customizing your build is the best way to go. It will also allow you to mix and match within groupsets to ensure you get the best price-performance ratio. For instance, you can splurge on a gorgeous Campagnolo Super Record crankset, while pairing it with a Chorus cassette. The Chorus cassette costs less while offering greater longevity without adding too much weight.
Similarly, you could build your bike up with excellent but not outrageously expensive Campagnolo Chorus, which offers a positive price-performance ratio, and then splurge where you’ll feel the most benefit: with top quality Bora Ultra WTO.
Going Full Custom
The difference between a custom build and full custom is that with a custom build, you are able to choose things like the components, wheels, and even paint job, while with a full custom, that’s where you can start choosing everything like the tube thicknesses and the geometry as well as the components and paint.
Full custom generally implies that you will be looking mainly at bikes made from materials like steel and titanium. That’s because these frames are usually welded or lugged, which means that the frame builder has the ability to modify the frame according to your size and geometry desires. Steel and titanium tubing can even be drawn or butted to meet your power output needs: smaller riders require tubes with less material while larger more powerful riders will need tubing that is thicker to handle the watts.
If you definitely want to go full custom and still want to have a carbon frame, there are a growing number of manufacturers that do offer custom carbon frames by using a tube to tube joining rather than the more common monocoque process. It is an interesting solution that typically joins the individual carbon tubes, or sometimes more complex sections, using an overlay of carbon to bond the tube sections together. One drawback of this process is that these frames can suffer from a weight penalty because more carbon is needed to bond the tubes together than would be needed in a monocoque frame.
However, if you are determined to get the absolute perfect geometry for your cycling requirements, then this could be the solution that is right for you.
Conclusion – Benefits of Buying a Custom Bike
The best part of going custom when building up your bike is that you get to make all the most important decisions yourself. That will make sure everything from the saddle to the crank length to the handlebar width and stem length will suit you perfectly.
Our experts at Wrench Science and the tools that our website offers like the Fit System and Bike Builder are here to help you in the decision-making process. But by taking the time to educate yourself on the various pros and cons of materials, groupsets, wheels, and geometry options, you will be armed with the information you’ll need to ensure that you’ll love your custom built bike from the first pedal stroke.
You may also like our article about what bike size should you choose.
