@burnthesheep
It's true that with careful research and hopefully experienced friends, you can save a lot money on the bike stuff.
Still, there are a LOT of hidden costs that add up quickly to make it quickly not a huge savings compared to a new TT bike (I'm talking like $4k-5k range), and the hassle of getting the RIGHT used parts of the right size, and that work properly is a royal pain the rear.
I DIY'd my own road bike a few years ago and honestly, in retrospect I should have gone out and just bought a $4k (at the time) Di2 brand-new spec road bike, due to all the hassle I had in learning all the installation/repair stuff from scratch, and the countless hours lost in trial-error due to my complete lack of experience. (Yes I know youtube shows stuff, but trust me - it just scratches the surface when you have real problems.) It was absolutely a loss of money and time for me by the end, and I still don't benefit from the installation knowledge since I'm not a bike shop, so things like installing/removing parts like headsets, BBS, etc., are something I do so rarely that I have to re-learn it all from scratch if I do it again.
I wouldn't recommend to any newbie to go used for this reason, unless they were already die-hard into the fun of scrounging and researching used parts and/or had a close friend who was very knowledgable about what to buy and troubleshooting it.
DIY bike repair seems easy - until it's not. Then it's devilishly hard. (Stupid things like stuck seatposts, rusted-fused bolts, etc....)
It's true that with careful research and hopefully experienced friends, you can save a lot money on the bike stuff.
Still, there are a LOT of hidden costs that add up quickly to make it quickly not a huge savings compared to a new TT bike (I'm talking like $4k-5k range), and the hassle of getting the RIGHT used parts of the right size, and that work properly is a royal pain the rear.
I DIY'd my own road bike a few years ago and honestly, in retrospect I should have gone out and just bought a $4k (at the time) Di2 brand-new spec road bike, due to all the hassle I had in learning all the installation/repair stuff from scratch, and the countless hours lost in trial-error due to my complete lack of experience. (Yes I know youtube shows stuff, but trust me - it just scratches the surface when you have real problems.) It was absolutely a loss of money and time for me by the end, and I still don't benefit from the installation knowledge since I'm not a bike shop, so things like installing/removing parts like headsets, BBS, etc., are something I do so rarely that I have to re-learn it all from scratch if I do it again.
I wouldn't recommend to any newbie to go used for this reason, unless they were already die-hard into the fun of scrounging and researching used parts and/or had a close friend who was very knowledgable about what to buy and troubleshooting it.
DIY bike repair seems easy - until it's not. Then it's devilishly hard. (Stupid things like stuck seatposts, rusted-fused bolts, etc....)