Back riding properly after 10 years, getting drunk a lot, partying, meeting wife and having two kids. Loads of research and many chats with bike mad friend and nip to lbs to pick my new bike. Usual brands to choose from etc with some niche stuff and so I chose!
Now after reading many threads/posts on here I feel a bit ford focus as opposed to zonda

you can buy whole bikes? 😯

Can't afford an top end off the shelf bike. A self build with cherry picked SH parts comes in much cheaper.

One of them is, with a few tweaks! 😉

as long as you have fun on it who gives a ****! There are lots of nichemongers on here, but it's all a daft pastime/expensive habit/addiction anyway so just enjoy the ride and welcome back to silliness 😀

Doesn't matter what you ride so long as you enjoy it, plenty of time to upgrade in the future if you feel the need. What did you get anyway?

First bike was stock for years…..only started tinkering when things wore out.
New bike is also stock and probably a bit boring for some on here, but I am loving it so far…..

Pics here: http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/new-bike-pics-alert

I like to buy of the shelf bikes then change the wheels, brakes, gears, headset, chainset, handlebars, seatpost and stem, seat and tyres. Apart from that totally stock.

I dont go any faster or fall off any less frequently though.

Fisher Big Sur. Loves it.

My HT was stock but has had forks and brakes changed (parts "needed" to build wife's bike). FS is cobbled together but massively cheaper than the off the shelf equivalent.

Ride what makes you happy and makes your wallet happy.

To be fair I love it and trust it on any terrain and have also been riding round with a big grin on my face similar to the one I have when driving my zonda 🙂

Spesh fsr by the way.

I was going to say 'yes', then I realised there's been a creeping customisation as bits fall off… my 06 enduro has non standard bars, saddle, crankset, tyres and bottom bracket, my Merida has non standard tyres, stem, bars, saddle and grips.
on the gripping hand, my single speed is entirely home made, even the frame was altered from original…

Yes…

Well, apart from adding some lock-on grips.

Rides fine as is; however, as bits wear out and break, I will take time to consider the replacements. Just took time and bought what I needed when I bought it and so far haven't felt a need to change anything.

I reckon I'll go 2×9 with a 38-28/26 up front due to the terrain I ride when I get to the stage of needing to replace front rings. But the triple on there is fine if somewhat under-utilized in some ways.

I thought about tubeless, but haven't even bothered going ghetto as I rarely get flats of any sort (*touches wood) and still run a low enough pressure that I don't lack grip – one of the benefits of being 10-10.5st!!

Mine's top of the line from a mainstream manufacturer (Top Fuel 9.9), I like to think of it as an Audi R8; 'exclusive' version of an everyday model 🙂

Back in '03, I bought my first one in over ten years. Was a Stinky fresh from Halfrauds, had a £800 knocked off with a mates staff discount and sale etc… got it home and split it to put on some real kit…

I have built many many bikes, but currently my meta 5 is the only one I've source all the parts for to build from scratch. The road bike was a custom build from the shops spec list, so is technically off the shelf maybe. And the hardtail is a standard whyte 905. But only recently has there been the advent of bikes like the 905 where the spec is pretty much as you want it off the shelf IMO

08 stumpy elite here, completely stock apart from the layback post (original was inline) and even that is specialized.

And I work in a bike shop.

It's more fun buying the frame and speccing it up to your exact requirements and/or budget.

A month after a good ride, you remember the ride, not the shiny bits on the bike 🙂

A month after a good ride, you remember the ride, not the shiny bits on the bike

Well said that man – one of the best comments I've seen on here.

I buy normal bikes, break something important and then cobble together the surviving bits with a SH frame/wheelset etc to end up with something that never works quite as well as the original.

Years ago my regular bike was knackered so borrowed a £200 hardtail of a mate and had one of my best days ever……

Stock bike but with a few changes, bar/stem/saddle/grips/tyres almost always go immediately. Has new pedals now.

A month after a good ride, you remember the ride, not the shiny bits on the bike

Conversely, you never forget a part that failed and ruined a ride.

My no.1 bike (Specialized Epic) was bought as a full off-the-shelf bike and was ridden that way for a while, but given I've owned it for over 6 years it's inevitable that things will change. Now the only original bits are the frame & shock, headset and front mech – everything else has been changed, although some of the bits live on as part of other bike builds.

That was the last complete bike I bought though – even since I've bought frames and built them up myself.

Mine was until I stuck a slightly larger rotor on the front…and last week I changed the rear mech from long to short…so it isn't stock any more, but it had been ridden for almost a year before changes…

I have built a bike in the past but it went way above the 'budget' I had set as I looked at each part on it's own and went for the best I could 'afford' – bike ended up costing about £3.5k to build – was a cracking bike but was way more than I needed…so I stick with stock so I can afford what I'm buying.

Like many others I can't stretch to new full build so I have to shop clever for bits. Does make it more fun though.

The best bikes I've seen/ridden have been top of the range 'off the shelf' models, some of the worst have been DIY jobs consisting of a seemingly random collection of 'top brand' blingery bolted onto a gaspipe frame 😉

I guess the majority of us bought a stock bike initially and over time have changed stuff for various reasons. Buying a frame and building is expensive (there is no way I can buy parts as cheap as the likes of Specialized/Trek/Giant can – even in the sale), compared to buying a stock bike, especially if the stock bike was a sale buy.

Saying that, I've a full custom build bike… built from the remenants of previous bikes and their upgrades and many, many purchases…

Suppose there is definately something to be said for both methods, as a returning rider I probably chose right coz I'd have probably ended up going further over budget as previous poster said! Mine has already received an uprated shock courtesy of the nice people at specialized. Reckon the first thing I'll change tho are the brakes. When i first rode her thought they were amazing. But now pushing ever harder I do wonder if they're quite up to it!

I'd be riding a stock bike, if it hadn't fallen off the carrier on the back of my car and needed lots of bits replacing as a result of them being filed down on the road surface.

epicyclo: A month after a good ride, you remember the ride, not the shiny bits on the bike

wwasswwas : Conversely, you never forget a part that failed and ruined a ride.

both true. swings and roundabouts.

🙁 I've started to forget the bits I broke a decade ago, but I'll never forget the first time I went mountain biking, the first trail centre, the first big off,

Most recent bike, changes from stock have been as follows;
Pedals
Grips
Tyres
Brake/gear mounting brackets
Seatpost
Saddle
Bars
Tubes

That's pretty standard on almost all of my bikes (bar the Matchmakers and the bouncy seatpost, of course!). For example, newest road bike had me changing the tyres, saddle and pedals straight from the box.

That is not good! Can't imagine watching my bike cartwheeling down the road behind me!!

Yes although I bought a stock bike I changed forks, wheels, tyres, skewers, seatpost, saddle and stem before I rode it!

Nice to make these things 'right'!

Yep, Trek Fuel EX8 (and what a fantastic bit of engineering it is too!)

Built up a bike for my daughter recently which went well and now building an Inbred for myself!

Spesh Pitch Pro, unchanged apart from wider bars and a bash ring
Spesh Secteur Sport, unchanged except tyres
Wife's bikes:
Spesh Vita Sport, completely unchanged
GT Backwoods, only stem and saddle changed.

Unbelievable the amount of time and money people are willing to put into this. Can't believe how many people have more than one bike!

classifieds/ebay mostly here. Though I did buy a new sanderson frame last year that was the forst new one out of the last 5. I haven't bought a new fork for 5 years either. Time consuming but no way i could afford the (low to mid range mostly) standard of parts if i went into a shop or even got it all from crc.

I don’t really do of the Peg MTBs, My BMX is largely stock, as was my road bike (till I changed the wheels), but I’m not that bothered about either bike beyond them working

I have assembled all of my MTBs from frame + aftermarket bits/spares/2nd hand stuff for the last 10 years or so, not sure if that’s a better, or even cheaper approach than buying a stock bike and then just changing parts as you go, probably not, in the long run assembling the whole thing takes more time and probably still costs more and you still end up making the odd compromise due to budget…
But then you know the bikes ins and outs better and definitely own all the tools to sort it out so that is one advantage.

Plus I don’t think you’d find many stock bikes that came as standard with XTR brakes a Hone crank with a Hope BB, SLX Mechs LX/STX shifters and an 8 Cassette, proper mix and match spec is the major benefit of the “self build” approach….

I drive a Ford Focus one of my bikes is a Specialized an other is a Trek what does that say about me?

Only one is standard tho.