GamJams Survey: Picking Up the Tab

With the exception of a few, here's how amateur racing goes: Your team has a few sponsors, which give you great deals on the essentials. Sometimes you get free stuff, but mostly it's deep discounts. At the end, you're still paying for most of it.

Often, that extends to the team's bike of choice. There may be one or two team frames given to the top riders every year, but everybody else is on their own ... with the expectation you'll buy a "team" bike if you're shopping for a new ride.

But what if you don't like the "team" bike? What if you can find a closeout model with top-level components for considerably less elsewhere? Are there sponsorship repercussions? Team relationship repercussions?