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@Nahguavkire
I've recently come to the realisation that I absolutely have justification for owning a travel bike. I work away from home about 75% of the time now and when I do I tend to be in places for a week at a time or more. As exciting as that sounds it sucks to not have any sort of regular thing in your life such as being able to cycle everyday after work so for my sanity I need a solution.
I've been bringing either my road bike or fixed gear with me when we're travelling by road (UK or Ireland) recently but looking at future workload there's going to be plenty of trips to further flung destinations that will require travelling by air so unless I shell out for a quality bike box and suffer airline sporting goods fees I'm not going to be able to get any cycling in. Also worth mentioning I'm not hugely keen on travelling with my other bikes in the back of the van as it's only a matter of time before they get damaged despite best efforts to pack them well.
I thought about going with a Ritchey Break-Away Steel Road but then the more I thought about it I thought I should really be building something a bit more versatile for this build as there is plenty of potential of ending up in places with really sub par roads so something more All-Road/ Gravel would be preferential.
I also thought about going for a Ritchey Break-Away Steel Cross but I can't help but feel that if I am building a more gravel oriented bike I'd obviously want disc brakes so that's kind of ruled that out for me.
Obviously the only logical outcome here is to treat myself to a custom built frame... I did look into S&S couplers but I can't help but feel like they're a bit clunky and an inelegant solution compared to the Ritchey Break-Away system using the seatpost as a stressed point to join the top tube and seat tube/ seat stays.
So far that narrows spec down to disc brakes, big tyres and Break-Away coupling.
Do I go for cable or hydraulic discs? I get the feeling that with regular travel the hydraulic discs would be a nightmare to have to bleed regularly compared to using the Ritchey cable connectors with a set of TRP Spyres or some other quality cable disc?
Should I go for 650b or 700c wheels and what tyre size should I allow for? Riding will probably be about 75% roads of varying standards with 25% gravel/ fire-roads/ dirt track?
Should I go for a 1x groupset and if so which? I'm partially tempted to just try and pick up a cheaper mechanical Dura-Ace groupset when the time comes around or perhaps Ultegra? Bearing in mind reliability and ease of setup with Ritchey cable connectors is important...
Budget is of some relevance in this build so it will be a steel frame with carbon fork. Any suggestions for tubing or forks? I've been looking at the Columbus Futura Gravel fork.
BB recommendation?
Axle recommendation?
Same goes for frame builder. I'm not set in stone regarding who the builder is and to some extent it will be dictated by price so any suggestions? A Ritchey Break-Away Steel Road is about £1600 so I'm hoping I can get this frame in around about the £2000 mark.
Also a fun bit of all of this is that whatever the finished product will end up there will be a pair of them made as my colleague who I travel with the most is also a keen cyclist and would similarly like a travel bike for these work trips.
I'm probably forgetting loads of things here but any suggestions or recommendations welcome!