When you buy a bike off the shelf, you’re buying the spec you see in the shop with very little room for manoeuvre.

So if you want that frame and those wheels, but you’d rather have a Campagnolo groupset than the standard Shimano one then that’s too bad.

In fact, even on a basic level, if you ride a 56cm frame but prefer 40cm bars, you’ll struggle to find a stock option that combines those two almost anywhere (the vast majority of 56cm bikes are specced with a 42cm handlebar) so you’ll probably have to buy the bike and then fork out for a replacement set of bars as well if you want the right fit. Same goes for stem length, and chainset and cassette size, and so on.

But building the bike yourself gives you total freedom. You’ll eliminate the parts of stock bikes that you generally have to endure rather than enjoy (cheap wheels and finishing kit being prime examples) and decide exactly where you want to spend your cash. Want to save money by buying a top alloy frame, rather than a carbon chassis, and free up more of your budget for the groupset and wheels, like we did on our summer bike build? Go for it. One of the joys of speccing and building your own bike is painstakingly choosing each and every part, exactly as you want it, not how a bike brand thinks you should have it.

You can even go wild and splice Campag wheels and cassette with a Shimano groupset if you want (although it’ll need to all be 11-speed to work properly). The point is that even if you fancy doing something really outlandish – or even foolish – you can and there’s nobody to stop you. Although, in certain cases, maybe there should be…