As far as I know, Velovie just buys the carbon frames from the same chinese distributors that sell them directly on ebay. They add a paint job, and mark up the price. My 2cents is to just buy the frame on ebay for ~$450 and then buy your sram Force on ebay (~$750-1000), slap your wheels on, get the cockpit set up how you want and go that route. If you look around enough you can get the sram Force and cockpit at nice discounts, especially here on the classifieds. The quality of the bike will probably be similar to velovie.

Otherwise, just wait for a nice used deal. For 2k you can get a really sweet used bike. I know of an older cervelo that was just sold with Sram Red for under 1.2k.

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Dtyrrell

I was at Velovie's HQ in Tempe last week. I was impressed with the overall bikes and components/group sets. I have a P2C for my TRI bike and picked up a Vitesse 500 for my new road bike. At the end of the day it depends what you would be happy with spending and comfort of the ride.

I cannot speak from an owner's view, but a coworker sold her Giant road and tri bikes and now competes with a Velovie Vitesse 400 road bike with clipon aerobars. I have just the perspective of a up close view of the frame and it looks and feels like a good lightweight frame. She won the women's overall in the aquabike this past weekend that had a hilly course and said that it was the best she has done in the many years competing at that event so she is seems to be very happy with the purchase.

Now that I have seen one in person I would consider Velovie if I could not find a lightly used frame on local consignment or a new brand name frame as a closeout.

I would consider the Veloce for sure. I like that they have the money back guarantee. When I was in the market I emailed, chatted with them a couple of times and was impressed. I ended up going a different route because I was lucky enough to find a local 2013 closeout at an amazing price that was just what I wanted. I would add that I do think there are lots of really good buys out there right now both in model year closeouts and people trying to sell the machines they aren't using anymore before storing for winter and getting another year older and less valued . . . good time to buy!

I just ordered a Sram Force 500 yesterday. I had been checking around for a while online for a closeout or something on sale. The 500 was the best deal I could find, especially since they are 30% off this month. It does look like their frame may be a generic Chinese. I also looked into buying a Deng Fu or = and building it up myself but cost wise, I don't think you could do it as cheaply as getting the whole bike. I think if I had some spare parts laying around it might be another story but the 30% off deal may it really attractive.
I have also been scouring Ebay & the Classified forum here but couldn't either the right geometry frame in the size I need or a really good deal on something used that was compariblewise to the 500.

Plus there is a 14 day money back guarantee which is pretty nice.