Custom made road bike advice wanted

I've been cycling for a while and am very happy with my entry level Giant OCR3 with few upgrades I've made, but am looking to upgrade to a full carbon frame, better wheelset, and better components etc etc.

I was looking to spend $3000ish. I was going to buy the frame and all the parts seperately / mainly online and have them then professionally assembled at my Local Bike Shop.

My question is - is there any advantage to getting all matching parts eg shimano cranks, drive train, derailleur, brakes etc or could I equally go with say shimano cranks, SRAM derailleurs and casettes, etc.

I guess I'm asking 1/ are different brand parts compatible / what parts need to be branded the same?? I assume you need same brand chain, casette and maybe derailleur is that right ?? What about gear / brake levers etc ??

Also, has anyone used SRAM or Token parts ?? They both seem to have some pretty swish and comparitively cheap carbon / light parts ?? I was wondering if the lower price equals lower quality vs campy or shimano ??

One final Question - does anyone know of an online retailer that sells full carbon frames seperately?? I've had trouble finding some.

Thanks in advance for the help.

My advice is, don't!

If you are spending that much $$ go to a professional Carbon Fibre Bike shop and be fitted to the bike. Any Felt Dealer would do nicely.

If you were buying a new car, would you expect the dealer to fit the engine, gearbox, brakes, suspension and diff from 4-5 different brands? NO! He would expect you to buy a car, complete from him. So, go with the Gorup-set that is on the bike, that'e why its a set! .

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Cheers,
George.

Firstly the car analogy is rediculous. I suppose your Felt bike came with Felt brakes, Felt saddle, Felt handlebar, Felt handlebar tape, Felt Tyres ... It is hardly uncommon to find a "off the shelf" bike with FSA cranks, or Truvativ cranks.

Meatman, buying a complete bike off the shelf is cheaper in most instances. Check out the manufacturer specifications of the parts you want to use. I cannot see how mixing and matching will give you a superior end product, except for the satisfaction of having exactly what you want on the bike. Unless of course if your aim is a weight weenie bike ...

http://jtekengineering.com/shiftmate.htm, this will expand your options if you want to go down that path.

I have been using these to mate my Campag shifters to a Shimano drivetrain.

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Heretic! Why not Campag throughout? I'd never buy Shimano again after my last two being Campag.

The bike is of course beautiful though.

Yes building a bike with a mix of parts is far easier with a road bike than say a mountain bike but why would you? unless you were a civil servant with far too much time to play on the Net.
There are still plenty of pitfalls with frame sizing , wrong threads , brake depths etc. plus most shops will charge you top dollar when they see you walking in with a pile of stuff off the Net.
Remember the guarantees will be sketchy at best & for $3000 you could buy a brandname carbon bike with Ultegra throughout with a full guarantee & after sales service. If you use your gold card you would even get airmiles & double the warranty.
My friends from Europe are amazed how cheap quality bikes are here but then are even more amazed at the junk most Australians ride around on!

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- why not read up properly on this , and then do the build DIY ?

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Because winter is too short to procrastinate

I spent roughly 15 hours of my time building my bike from scratch. Frustrating? You bet. Could would the $200 build fee from the local shop have been less hassle? You bet. But I learned a lot about my bike simply by reading and following the instructions that came with the individual components.

It's kind of nice to know that I am not held to any particular shop to perform service on my bike.

In response to the original questions: SRAM parts work beautifully, and I highly recommend them (unless perhaps you want to spend the money on Campy Record). And some components are not meant to work with other brands (for example, SRAM shifters will not work as well with Shimano derailleurs).

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"If you don't keep turning the crank, you won't get where you're going." -Albert Kong

http://www.deitchman.net/blog/

Look 595 (with SRAM Force kit)
Bianchi San Jose (SS or Fixed)
Rock Lobster Steel CX

Thanks heaps for the replies guys!! Hmm - I'm begining to think it might be better to wait for the next one to build it myself. Think I'd be happier having a possibly slightly inferior product / not entirely customised that has full warranty and can take it all back to one shop rather then all the potentail probs of ordering multiple parts from multiple suppliers. Will probably wait until I know bit more about the mechanics of bikes before building one - when I can talk down to the younger repair shop guys then I'll start building my own hehe

Your getting the idea! As far as a warranty goes, do you feel better on a bike that was assembled by a kid (who is making minimum wage and is probably thinking about his upcoming ride rather than the task at hand), than one that you built up yourself, just so that you can save the cost of having it repaired if it breaks? Ask yourself the same question on a downhill doing 65KPH! I had a crankarm detach many years ago, luckily resulting in no major bodily harm, and now I build and maintain my own bikes. The only thing that I do not do is weld my own frames. Yeah, it takes a little bit of time and patience. I have yet to have a purchased part that needed to be repaired/replaced under warranty(pretty good for five bikes). I have only had one item lost in shipment. But if my bike is going to come apart at the worst possible time, it is going to be because I screwed something up, which I have yet to do on one of my bikes. The peace of mind that comes with building your own and knowing it is done right is worth all of the warranty protection on earth !