I didn't really want to go down the carbon frame route at this time and after test rides had settled on either the Boardman HT Pro or a Whyte 901 or 905. Both brands bikes felt quite similar and were easily the best I'd tested in that price range.
Due to a lack of availability of decent second hand Whytes, I eventually found a Boardman HT Pro which had been used maybe once. It was mint when I picked it up, still with reflectors and receipts from Halfords. £600 for a practically new £1000 bike seemed a pretty good deal.
I also love the look of the Boardman so it will be a bike that I'm happy to grow with.
The bike itself in standard guise was a more than adequate performer and weighed in at 25.198lbs (11.42kg) without pedals, possibly a tad more but I'd already removed bottle cage bolts, reflectors and rear plastic cassette guard before weighing.
I then set out on the budget weight loss trail.
I've generally replaced the obvious parts of a bike with a proviso to only change parts that will be around half the weight of the original part or lighter.
I would love to spend huge amounts on the lightest parts available but I'm under no illusion that to get really big results you need to spend more money than I had to put into this project, I knew that I wouldn't be building the lightest bike ever but with a bit of patience and ingenuity I should be able to bring the weights down and be left with a very light usable bike.
The saddle was a personal choice where I could've gone a bit lighter than 180 grams for what I spent but wanted the toughness and comfort that the Selle Italia SLR XC Flow offered, I also got it new for a bargain price of £55!
I'm not yet upgrading to clip in pedals again through personal choice so at the moment when commuting I prefer to use toe clip pedals, for off road and trails I've now tried a few different types of flats and platforms but at the moment I'm loving the tiny SARS.
The bike now feels great, I love the narrower , flat bars which give the bike a much more race feel. The grips are also fantastic and would recommend them to anyone as long as they're used with gloves.
The only part of the standard bike that I really had an issue with were the slightly heavy rims and awful Formula hubs, that's definitely something for the future but I'm going to run the standards until I have any issues with them.
Another route I could have taken would've been to just spend the money on a new wheelset but I don't think I would've enjoyed that as much.
For the time being, at least for the remainder of the summer I'm done with the upgrades. The next will probably be better and lighter tyres and inner tubes but I'm going to wear down the rather terrible Continental Mountain Kings first.
The bike is now down to 23.761lbs (10.77kg) a saving of 653 grams, it really doesn't seem like much but for an outlay of £774.91 with extras like pedals and pumps coming in at £71.73 I thinks it's been a pretty competitive build.
Using ebay as a guide then there's definitely nothing as new selling for the cost of my build so I feel somewhat justified.
I've made a quite useful and easy to follow build chart on Microsoft Excel and put a link to it here in PDF format, feel free to copy it if you like the layout.
Please let me know what you think.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9z1xJ3sukyeZGJIYlZ6OUVsRWs/edit?pli=1
[url][url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/79798036@N02/7314018448/]

3 by Chuck-light, on Flickr[/url]

1 by Chuck-light, on Flickr

3 by Chuck-light, on Flickr
Truvativ World Cup Noir Flat Handlebars and Bontrager XXX Lite foam grips

5 by Chuck-light, on Flickr

8 by Chuck-light, on Flickr

10 by Chuck-light, on Flickr
5 gram Top Cap

11 by Chuck-light, on Flickr
Easton EC90 Post and 9 gram aluminium clamp and Selle Italia SLR XC Flow saddle

13 by Chuck-light, on Flickr

14 by Chuck-light, on Flickr

15 by Chuck-light, on Flickr

16 by Chuck-light, on Flickr