Amazing how you can look at a seller and completely miss what they are offering. Have Farsports Gravel Wheels and they are excellent. Looks the way to go! Thanks all

My replacement frame showed up after much emailing back & forth

Note. They will only ship you the frame & not the seatpost or fork or handlebar.
I went ahead & paid another $300 to get another fork/seatpost/handlebar & they forgot to add in the Garmin mount, which I paid for & they have now stopped responding to emails & I have no idea if it will ever show up.

So at this point I have a fullblown set sitting in the garage with parts to make a whole new bike or move components over from existing bike, where I had the bb creak & the insert move around.
I did fix that (for now) by drilling a hole & pouring in RC-1 but now there other rattles in the front & I might just move over components to new frame & keep old one as a spare or put that bike on a trainer & just go with force eTap on the replacement frame (though now I am badly addicted to the Campagnolo Record mechanical shifting, after they sent a replacement FD & the tech fixed it & did a superb job)

I'd pay the extra $280 for the above 2 components & just keep them as a standby in case you need them.
You might be able to use RC-1 to bond the seatpost & just use the frame in a trainer at home, since it won't be safe to ride outside anywhere.

Keep the above in mind & keep in touch via email with "Chris" so you get your replacement frame. Their communication is fairly good given the latency & they do send out tracking #'s when they ship.

All in all, it was still an awesome learning experience & apart from some niggling issues, I would have no hesitation buying the same frame again to build a bike.

Thanks for the advice. ‘Chris’ responded this morning to say they could send a 1.5k frame out on Monday. There was a bit of confusion as they first said they would send a UD finish so I said this was fine but would want new forks as this would match.

I did also previously get a quote for $200 to change to the vb168 frame with all the additional components added but decided against.

I know what you mean with nice to have spare parts - also I may well paint/get somebody to paint this replacement frame before building it so new parts would be easier. Did they send you all new hardware too? Bearings clamps etc?

Then again. Part of me also thinks it’s another $200-300 dollars down the drain when I decide against using the new frame and go buy a western brand haha.

Last question: does everybody else’s frame seem to have a worrying amount of flex around bottle cage area on the downtube and the middle of the chain stays? I know you’re not supposed to ‘squeeze’ the carbon but honestly some of the wall thickness does worry me! Forks, handlebars and seatpost all seem solid but the frame just doesn’t seem to match.