Hello, I would appreciate any well considered advice on the following plan I have. My aim was to buy a versatile and durable bike to deal with road, canal and trail paths, in all weather conditions. I narrowed my focus to something with a steel frame, drop bars and disc brakes and found the Cotic Escapade (http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/escapade), which I was thinking of buying, but for £1600 it stretches my budget to the point of psychological discomfort.

Some Escapade reviews (specs may differ):
Cotic Review 1
Cotic Review 2

But today I found the following in the sales:
Shimano hydraulic levers and calipers for £250.
Shimano 105 chain, chainset, cassette, front and rear derailleur for £160.

I could buy the frame and fork from Cotic for an additional £350 which equals £760. Then the Cotic “Deep Section Disc only rims on Cartridge bearing CC disc hubs” wheels for another £275. The total is now £1035, £565 cheaper than the Cotic build with the same frame, fork, wheels, brakes and drivetrain, but still needing a stem, seatpost, saddle, tyres, and so on. The decision about the wheels I can make at a later date, now I need to decide on the hydraulic brakes and drivetrain.

So my questions are:
a. Is my buying the set of hydraulics and 105 drivetrain a good idea, considering the price?
b. How difficult is it to build a bike from scratch, as opposed to buying the bike from Cotic? I could ask my LBS to do this, but it would incurr additional costs which would need to be factored in.
c. Should I quickly estimate the cost for rotors, tyres, stem, seatpost, saddle and steering and add this to my cost estimates?

An update on the cost of the other components:

Cane Creek 10 Series headset £30
100mm x 10 deg stem £10
Layback 330mm seatpost £15
440mm wide handlebar £15
Shimano 160mm rotors x 2 £35
Continental Sport Contact 700cx35mm x 2 £35

Cost = £1035 + £140 = £1175, or £425 cheaper.

Personally I always build my own bikes, it allows me to personalise and I find it quite satisfying. It sounds like it may end up cheaper, but how confident are you about building it? There may well be parts you forget about (inner tubes, cables, bar tape, qr’s etc for example) and if you get lbs to build they will charge (no idea of cost but would anticipate £60 and upwards).

Edit- I guess even taking this into consideration it’s still cheaper to do what you suggest

105 will be an excellent drivechain. Building it yourself will be fun, just make sure you have all the right tools to do a proper job and take your time.

i’d look at kinesis cx disc wheels, same price point, same intended use but quite a lot lighter. the self build option certainly sounds like the better choice