Long Teng 301D. I have a 268 and love it. the 301 is more recent, lighter, and takes wider tyres. It's a chonky looking boy. And because their marketing budget is a grand total of zero, it's cheap. They OEM for Argon 18. I've built 2, very well finished. And i've ridden mine over 8k km this year, so i'm confident saying they make good stuff.

Not to be the party pooper, but the rim width is really old school. Aero matters more than weight virtually all of the time, and you can get full on modern 50mm wheels for 1300g for c.700 USD w carbon spokes. So if you're building a hill climb bike, then sure, but for virtually every single biking application, you'd be better served with a wider rim, a 28C tyre (if not more), a good rim to tyre interface (aka, a wide rim), and a good spoke shortening device (aka, a deep rim).
Unless you actively want to go slow, ofc. Some people take pride in spending good money to buy bad performance.
And it's been shown many times, but 1kg difference up a climb makes virtually no difference, so 300g...

Shoes arrived today. Took same size as my Shimano shoes which is sized up by one compared to my normal shoes. Fits well. Also seems warm enough for a cold(er) ride.

Only problem: how tf are you mounting your road cleats without those stupid MTB cleat screws being in the way?! If I remove the screws, then the mounting plate where they go into rattles around in there. Cannot remove the mounting plate, as the base layer of the shoe is glued to the frame.

How did you mount your cleats without the damn plate rattling around there like nobody's business?! 

I just removed the screws and called it a day I havent heard or felt the plate rattling. didn't even cross my mind tbh. But the hot glue option is probably the one i'd go for. Or a tiny bit of super glue that you break off if you ever want to switch to MTB.
I've probably done 5-10 rides with the shoes by now. I always get slightly cold feet w them (riding at 0-10C) for 1-3h rides. I have neoprene shoe covers somewhere i could put on top, but i'd have to find them, put them on, which i hate, and so i guess the shoes are warm enough that i havent tried that yet. The sole is shockingly soft though, when i walk w them vs my carbon soled shoes, it's really day and night. But it's winter, so it doesnt matter if i lose 5w in power transfer.

I can only recommend my long teng 268. It's not the newest, not the lightest, but it is cheap, and i'm so incredibly pleased with it.
Bear in mind that velobuild is a broker, while long teng is a factory, for example. So value wise, the broker has to eat, and so does the factory. if you go factory direct, you trim a layer of fat.
I've put over 8k km on it, i'm faster on the flat and downhill than pretty much everyone i know, and i ride with ex national champions. And to be clear, it's not me, it's the bike. It's just easy to get to 40kmh, and to stay there, with a bit of effort. With older bikes, that would have meant a vo2max effort.
Now obviously i'm not saying it's magical, but i'm saying that if you build it right, it can be fast AF.

Alibaba. you can get a thousand quotes in 10min. It's incredibly commoditized.
You can end up spending a lot though, or getting garbage. Finding the right balance is what's hard. But if you're fine leaving money on the table, then you'll find great kit makers on alibaba. MOQs are a vibe more than a reality, even if you only need 1 suit, they'll make it for you. It's extremely easy for them to run anything through their machines and staff.
In fact it's so commoditized now, the new frontier is India / Pakistan / Viet Nam.

Fun fact: Apple and the likes have started moving manufacturing away from China into these countries. While many people in the west still live in the past, sounding like alcoholic boomers claiming that china uses child labor, which was true a good many years ago, China hasn't been a low cost country for a long time now, but rather a manufacturing behemoth. If you want cheap, you go to China's satellites now. North Korea also produces a lot of stuff on behalf of China (there are documentaries on Hugo Boss stuff being made in North Korea, for example, and that is not new). But you wont find north korean sellers on alibaba :p

Could you link to the PC & store pls

https://a.aliexpress.com/_Ey0lTwH

It's claiming to be shipping from Europe, and I'm in Europe, so speed + customs cleared, so your mileage may vary.
Also, I just noticed the seller messaged me to say it's not in stock for another week, but he offered me an upgrade (same thing/specs, different looking mini pc case) for free (another listing also claiming to be shipping from Europe). I just replied yes, hasn't shipped yet. If the whole thing turns into a shit sandwich I'll update my post here.

Had another ER9 grp in my cart with discount decided to but it in queue by entering the wrong ccv code. So I could decide later if I took the groupset or not, it ignored the ccv and just went through..  How do I explain that to the wife

Surely you can cancel an order if you act very quickly, no? It raises a good question, in fact: can you cancel an order if you act quickly?

China cycling on YT released a video on it. Very low stack, very stiff, very uncomfortable. A lot of that absence of comfort is probably due to that blade looking seat post. It's ironic, because you want a seat post to be stiff laterally, so it doesnt bend when you pedal seated, side to side, but you do want it to bend / absorb front to back when you hit any road imperfection. So, mechanically, you'd actually want the blade shape to be turned 90 degrees, but because of aero, you dont. Which, btw, is probably the biggest ad for a round seatpost.
There's no mention of wind tunnel testing, so they're selling an aero 2k frame w/o aero data.
For most people in the west, ie anyone who isn't only interested in a very aggressive, very low race bike for race day, that's probably a poor frame choice, especially if you're tall.
Joe mentions the supersix evo hi mod rim as peak stiff and peak discomfort. I rebuilt mine (the himod version Sagan raced before going to specialized) and rode it a few times this summer after doing thousands of km on my LT268. Yes, it feels nice uphill, although it's not faster than my LT (as per strava, doing hard efforts on a climb i know well), but man, anywhere else, it suuuuucks. I have 25mm high end tubulars on bora one 50mm wheels. It's jittery, uncomfortable, sketchy downhill because it doesnt feel planted at all, it's slow AF on the flat, plain horrible in comparison.
My supersix weighs ~6kg, and the 268 is ~7.5.