I like AliEx for little things like this.

FYI - the ZRace XG calipers have been working fine at least for road. Nothing wrong with LTwoo calipers and they might be better if aero is a priority, but since I focus more on climbing I prefer the weight drop of the XG calipers. I've been using them on both my mechanical Ultegra and ER9 bikes with no problems so far.

I run an XG on the back and a dura ace from EBay on the front—aero where it matters more

So the biggest issue when selecting a new frame is minimizing the number of new components you need to buy. You definitely need to plan on getting new brake hoses, brake barbs and olives, cable housing and cables that you can cut to match the new cable routing. Pretty much in every case you need new bottom bracket bearings since it’s easier to just buy new ones than try to extract your old ones. You also are going to have issues with the integrated cable routing on these newer Chiner frames. Your defy has semi internal, which means your stem won’t be compatible. So you’ll need a new stem to match the integrated cable routing, or you can buy an integrated handlebar. Many of these frames come with a handlebar or stem that matches that bikes routing,  so that’s something worth paying attention to.

You will also need some specialized tools if you don’t already have them. Cable housing cutters, tools to remove the cassette and disc brake lock rings (if you have center lock discs), and a tool for your new bottom bracket—depending on which standard your new frame has. Also a bleed kit for your brake swap.

That’s pretty much everything I can think of off the top of my head

Nice wheels and all, but can I ask about the truing stand? Is that an AliExpress model or rather a Western product?

It's sold by RRS Kit. As Tidy said, it's available on Ali. I bought mine on Amazon, it was actually cheaper that way.

As Tidy said, it's not centered at all. The right side support wiggles and puts the wheel about 5mm to the right of center. I haven't been able to fix it, but I can deal with it during dishing by repeatedly flipping the wheel around. Funny enough, TOOT engineering seems to build their wheels on the same stand. If it's good enough for those guys it definitely gets my job done.

The nice thing is that it comes with precision dials to measure trueness, so you can easily find the point of greatest deflection away from your reference point. I try to true down to less than 0.5mm deviation in any direction, I think I'm consistently in the neighborhood of 0.3mm.

Good luck with your degree!

Thank you! I graduated this weekend, so off to new adventures, and hopefully a little more time to ride (and hopefully to lose some weight too )

I think the only one that has really built an enduring reputation is the Winspace T1550. But you'll find a lot of people say it's overpriced at this point.

The nature of the space is that new bikes are released every year so by the time a bike is "vetted", it's pretty much an old design and there are fancier/shinier frames replacing it.

I think the best way to find the most vetted/discussed frames on this forum is to sort by the number of replies.

This will show you that the VB-R-168, Carbonda CFR1056, and Lightcarbon LCR017 are the most discussed frames.

Of course, you might find that a bike is highly discussed because it is problematic (see the VB-R-268), so really if you want to vet the frame yourself you'll need to read the whole thread.

I wanted to share with you all the results of my first wheelbuild. The headline specs/stats are:

• weight: 1319g
  
• depth: 50/55mm (front/rear)
  
• width: 21/28 (internal/external)
  
• cost: $718

I've been meaning to make this thread for a while. I've been busy finishing my PhD and finally had the time to cobble it together. Theres some more build info I want to add in a later post but I'll put this up for now.

I had recently bought myself a truing stand and tensionmeter to rebuild a wheel with a rim that I broke racing CX. Now having the tools to build wheels, I got curious about the phenomenally low prices on wheelbuilding components, as well as the freedom to pursue interesting build configurations.

I'll be transparent here: this is a vanity build driven by questionable weight and aero-weenie-ing. Experienced wheelbuilders will probably cringe at my choices, and that's fine with me. The irony of scraping for grams on this build while I could stand to lose 20lbs of body fat is not lost on me. At the end of the day I had a lot of fun building these up, I think they look super cool, it's exciting to me that I've built up such a lightweight wheelset, and I've had a pretty good experience riding them so far. Given this premise of vanity over practicality, I hope you can appreciate my wheelbuild for what it is.

Rims:
I did a bit of searching for the manufacturer of the lightest rims and landed on Deerobust. It helps that they are the first result when you search "lightest carbon rim" into aliex. This is no exaggeration, the 21mm-internal-width, 50 and 55mm-deep rims I chose ("featherweight"-spec + paintless finish) were quoted at 390g and 420g respectively; the only manufacturer that seems to come close is Lightcarbon.

I chose 50/55 simply because it's a depth that seemed to strike a good balance between weight and aero. I also won't lie and say that the decision was influenced by the fact that the Enve SES 4.5 rims used by Pogi and UAE are 50/55mm deep, even though if we're being realistic those are completely different wheels. I chose 21mm internal width because it seems that this is still the ideal rim width for aero given a 28mm tire. I understand the rule of 105% says otherwise. On the other hand, Peak-torque's testing results (particularly the comparison of the Polaris Ascent 42 against the ICAN Aero 35 across 28mm and 32mm tires) suggests that a 28mm tire is faster on a 21mm internal width rim compared a wider one.

Another feature I chose for my rims is internally-drilled spoke holes. For one, there is the (dubious) aero benefit of having hidden nipples. But more importantly--as ENVE's marketing material points out--smaller spoke holes means stronger spoke holes, and therefore a stronger, safer rim.

I paid $507 (inc. shipping) to order my rims from Deerobust, with bespoke paintless finish, hole-drilling, and logo.  The rims weighed 410 and 415g respectively. I was a tad disappointed that my front rim came 5g over the spec weight +/- 15g margin of error. On the other hand, my rear rim came 5g under spec weight, the average weight between the two was under the +/- 15g per rim margin of error, so I called it good and decided to not complain.

Hubs
As for hubs, I chose GOLDIX 21-spoke hubs with 2:1 lacing. These have no official model number but appear to be a DT-swiss style ratchet hub with straight-pull lacing. I chose these because a) Goldix seems to have a fairly decent reputation on here, and b) these hubs are very lightweight. The standout unique design feature of these hubs is that there are 21 spokes, 14 spokes laced in a 3x pattern on the stressed side (drive side on rear, brake side on front), and 7 radially-laced spokes on the non-drive side. I went for this unusual design because fewer spokes theoretically means lighter and more aero, while the 2:1 3x lacing, especially when paired to such deep rims, potentially could make up for the loss in stiffness. Remember, this is a vanity build.

When my hubs arrived, they seemed to be of decent quality. The bearings were a tad notchy--something that has gone away since I started riding them. The bearings are "NBK" brand, and have metal ball cages, which are a feature of decent-quality bearings. These aren't showstoppers, but they aren't complete garbage either.

One criticism I have about these hubs is that that to achieve radial lacing on the non-stressed side, the hub axle has a hole drilled out to allow a spoke to be passed through into the back of the spoke hole. This means that the wheel bearing on the radially laced side is offset inboards an entire centimeter. This is bad for hub stiffness and longevity. The further inboards the bearing sits, the longer the unsupported section of the axle is (making less stiff), and the bearing has to bear more axial/side loading (which harms longevity). In the future I might swap these hubs out for a different design.

Spokes and nipples
For this build I chose Pillar Wing 20 with Pillar hex-10 internal nipples. I have a whole extra story to tell about these nipples that I will get to another time. I chose these spokes over the alternative (Sapim CX Ray/DT aerolite) because they are supposedly stiffer, lighter, just as aero, and definitely are cheaper. The idea that a wider spoke section is just as aero as a narrower one baffles me, but I'll trust in Campagnolo and Boyd, who have supposedly tested this difference and chose the Pillar wings. I also spoke-prepped my threads using Rock n Roll Nipple cream.

Finishing touches
As is common, I have wrapped my wheels in 28mm Continental GP5000 clincher tires, with RideNow 19gr tubes inside, likely the lightest and lowest-rolling-resistance combo in the Continental range, barring the GP5000TT. I'm also running ONIRII's super-light 160mm floating disc rotors, and an S-ROAD one-piece 11-32 cassette

Overall impressions
So far I've logged about 100 miles on these new wheels on my road bike. They certainly sound cool and feel fast. And they do not feel like they're particularly lacking in stiffness. One major complaint I am experiencing is that my freehub ratchet has been slipping occasionally. I serviced it and found that I had reinstalled the o-ring incorrectly and that some dirt/grime had made its way into the ratchet. After a bit of cleaning and regreaseing it was nearly perfect once again, perhaps I need to clean it more and regrease with the special DT swiss ratchet grease.

Are these truly "fast" wheels? Who knows. They haven't stopped me from setting a bunch of Strava PRs here and there. But as far as bling factor, these are 10/10, super cool and super fun wheels to have.

Thanks for reading my wheelbuild story. Would love to hear your thoughts and questions. Hopefully soon, I can make a quick post about how I dealt with some challenges I experienced using the Hex-10 nipples.

Actually I must apologise, I misunderstood what tavelo is and can understand their prices now. They're not a bike company, they're a marketing company selling bikes, it's like specialized on steroids. They charge this much because they can. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what the value proposition product is if it sells.

Their exorbitant markup for non-chinese market is because every frame they sell here potentially loses them eyes in their main market and because they don't really need us the sales quantity losses are balanced out by the suckers that will pay this much.

I really don't get what the hand-wringing is over the markup. They are charging what they think the market will bear for the perceived quality and service.

I've bought a Lightcarbon LCG071 and a Seka Exceed; the Seka Exceed cost me around 3x more and frankly I think I got my money's worth with the Exceed. The finishing kit on a Seka is much nicer, and every part included is far-superior quality spec. They replaced my whole damn frame (and even painted a new frame just for me with an out-of-production color) at no extra cost after I discovered an issue with it over 6 months after buying it. It's just a much nicer bike with much better after-sales service than what I'd ever expect from Velobuild or Lightcarbon. I absolutely think that a company that essentially exists to retail, market, paint, and (hopefully) QC frames can add enough value to justify a markup like this, and I also think that if PP adds enough value through after-sales service, then their markup is justified too. (note: I still haven't seen evidence that they really do enhance the after-sales service)

The calculus here is easy: is the added risk/hassle of going through a Chinese company worth the cost-savings when compared to buying an equivalent-spec frame locally? Different people will make either decision depending on their circumstances, and hopefully PP and Tavelo have found a price and level of service that adequately suits the needs of many people making this decision.

Personally I think the Arow looks like a better frame design than the Seka Exceed and the Bross Zenith. The paint jobs are a little out there but I think the Arow does the best job striking the balance between aero and lightweight features for my tastes. The Arow is also (supposedly) a lighter frame than the Exceed or the Zenith. Seka’s spear looks like a better product, but I believe it will be more expensive. I get that this is a matter of personal taste, but my point is there really is a market for the Arow