Have you bought a carbon frames from China via eBay

[Joachim]

Feedback on your experiences would be welcome!

 

[LugHugger]

Would recommend roadbikereview.com forum here for research.

 

[simo1733]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4482714623373&l=2824b68b31

I bought this Chinese TT bike and had it painted locally.I'm happy with it for the price,and actualy prefer it to the Cervelo P2 I had before.

 

[Benotti69]

Would recommend roadbikereview.com forum here for research.

+1

They are on their 6th thread about buying chinese carbon. Everything you could possibly want to know will be in them.

 

[Joachim]

Thanks all, excellent advice!

There are some amazing looking bits of kit in the gallery thread on rbv. I'm stunned by the paint jobs some of these places offer.

 

[Boeing]

I bought a 29er frame and rigid fork. Apart from a shifting issue with internal routing it is amazing stiff and light. Impressed with the fork. I did have to run a full cable housing zip tied for rear derailleur. Reviews and communication with mfg indicate my issues is isolated.

alibaba is the company

I have no issue with Chinese carbon frames at the price point. in fact Iam considering a road frame

up the big brand establishment; especially the roadie market/

 

[Joachim]

Isn't alibaba some kind of eBay style marketplace?

Do you remember the name of the vendor at all?

Just to be a tosser, I'm half considering one of those blatant Pinarello Dogma fakes and sticking an ENO fixed wheel in it.

(I do have a titanium Pinarello, so I wouldn't feel too bad about buying a copy)

 

[LugHugger]

In my experience alibaba is to be avoided. it's basically a portal for anybody to sell, much like ebay as you say. deal directly with the three or four vendors named on rbr. many 'vendors' on alibaba are rip off merchants - fake chinarellos if you like

 

[Boeing]

Isn't alibaba some kind of eBay style marketplace?

Do you remember the name of the vendor at all?

Just to be a tosser, I'm half considering one of those blatant Pinarello Dogma fakes and sticking an ENO fixed wheel in it.

(I do have a titanium Pinarello, so I wouldn't feel too bad about buying a copy)

I dealt direct with LT bikes. Not sure why I said alibaba maybe because it was a link for frame geometry chart. http://www.ltbikes.com/


it has performed admirably and frankly I have no pride in spending 5k on a frame anymore. bikes to me are disposable. ride them into the ground and reboot.

you wont find me rebuilding campy shifters and hubs and bragging about it on the web

 

[Giuseppe Magnetico]

you wont find me rebuilding campy shifters and hubs and bragging about it on the web

No, you like to brag about your SRAM hook up as if that canned spaghetti you get for free is somehow comparable to home cooking. No way! Ha-ha!!!

 

[fujisst]

Had a terrible experience with an eBay purchased Chinese frame. A_Baygoods was the seller and sent me the wrong frame AND in the wrong size. When I demanded a refund, was told I had to send it back first. Well, shipping from Canada to Hong Kong with a signed receipt (per eBay policy and to protect me from them saying they never received it) via Canada Post is $347!!!! The frameset cost $399! Needless to say, I was SOL.

Worst thing about this is eBay does not require sellers who send out erroneous items to pay for the buyer's return shipping. Ergo, the buyer is left holding the bag for return shipping on an item that the seller mistakenly sent out. Needless to say (again), I WILL NEVER buy another big ticket item from an offshore seller again. Let this be a warning to all you out there considering purchasing one of these frames via eBay. You've been warned.

 

[laziali]

Had a terrible experience with an eBay purchased Chinese frame. A_Baygoods was the seller and sent me the wrong frame AND in the wrong size. When I demanded a refund, was told I had to send it back first. Well, shipping from Canada to Hong Kong with a signed receipt (per eBay policy and to protect me from them saying they never received it) via Canada Post is $347!!!! The frameset cost $399! Needless to say, I was SOL.

Worst thing about this is eBay does not require sellers who send out erroneous items to pay for the buyer's return shipping. Ergo, the buyer is left holding the bag for return shipping on an item that the seller mistakenly sent out. Needless to say (again), I WILL NEVER buy another big ticket item from an offshore seller again. Let this be a warning to all you out there considering purchasing one of these frames via eBay. You've been warned.

I would never buy a Chinese frame on eBay because I value my safety (see link I posted elsewhere with article from 20+ year carbon veteran -"might be good, might not be, just don't know" was the gist). BUT, Fujisst, all may not be lost for you. I recently had a similar experience with a cycling jersey (all of $25). So I just lodged a case with eBay and after the requisite time, eBay refunded my $. I think it was because I paid through Paypal which has inbuild insurance against this risk. Good luck!!!

 

[fujisst]

I would never buy a Chinese frame on eBay because I value my safety (see link I posted elsewhere with article from 20+ year carbon veteran -"might be good, might not be, just don't know" was the gist). BUT, Fujisst, all may not be lost for you. I recently had a similar experience with a cycling jersey (all of $25). So I just lodged a case with eBay and after the requisite time, eBay refunded my $. I think it was because I paid through Paypal which has inbuild insurance against this risk. Good luck!!!

I paid with Paypal (owned by eBay), and they offer no such "insurance". I speculate eBay refunded your money because of the low cost of your item and as a customer service 'gesture'. But, yeah, bad on me for buying a Chinese eBay frame in the first place because they do eventually explode into tiny pieces. LOL!

 

[laziali]

I paid with Paypal (owned by eBay), and they offer no such "insurance". I speculate eBay refunded your money because of the low cost of your item and as a customer service 'gesture'. But, yeah, bad on me for buying a Chinese eBay frame in the first place because they do eventually explode into tiny pieces. LOL!

Maybe your bad, maybe not ... here's my earlier post and link:

"When I'm bombing down a descent at 80km/h+ I have complete faith that my Colnago frame ain't going to fail. If I was on a Chinarello or some other no-name Chinese frame, not so much.

Before some noob or know-nothing says "they all come out of the same factory blah blah blah", have a read of this from well respected Cyclingtips.com.au http://www.cyclingtips.com.au/2011/08/are-all-carbon-bikes-created-equal/
"... I spoke with a gentleman named Raoul Luescher about this topic to find out his views. If there’s anything you want to know about composite materials, Raoul is the man to ask. He owns Luescherteknik has been involved with composite materials for nearly 20 years. He’s worked with Boeing Aerospace, Defence, the AIS and is the designer of the Malvern Star Oppy.

When I asked Raoul about the difference between brand name and no-name bikes, his first response was “You just don’t know…”

You don’t know the quality system behind it, you don’t know the engineering behind it, you don’t know the materials it was built with, you don’t know anything. It could be good, it could be rubbish. How do you know? From an engineering point of view that’s a concern. Fiber type, strength tolerances, bonding, each tube’s structural design are all considerations.

From Raoul’s point of view coming from an aerospace background, you want to know everything about an airplane before you fly it. Same thing on a bike. If you’re ripping down a descent at 80km/hr, you don’t want the thing to break. You want a good degree of confidence that your bike has been engineered properly and quality tested to comply with standards. There are plenty of people out there who have bought one of these inexpensive no-name bikes and haven’t had any problems with them, but you simply don’t know what process they’ve gone through and there is no way to find it out. ..." (The full article is well worth the read)

 

[Boeing]

and you just dont know if a $7,000 carbon fiber frame is $6,500 better equipped either

 

[laziali]

and you just dont know if a $7,000 carbon fiber frame is $6,500 better equipped either

Absolutely agree. It's all about risk appetite.

 

[Joachim]

I'm under no illusions about the potential lack of qc of these frames. There seem to be a couple of vendors that have quite a following on RRR. Hongfu being the most interesting to me. On reflection, I'm going to stick with my 5500 and my 585

 

[ustabe]

Smart.

A few years ago I was working on a plan to spec and export a line of Chinese (Taiwanese) carbon bikes. My most discouraging concern was setting myself up as the middleman for warranty and product liability claims with no idea what kind of support I would actually get from the supplier. The other was that these bikes would be only nominally cheaper than last year's brand name bikes on clearance.

 

[Joachim]

Just as well you changed your mind. I know of a business which went under after trying the same with Ti. It was the warranties that did for him.

I have a frame from the same factory he was using. It has held together fine (so far), but when it arrived the BB threads were mashed.

 

[SlantParallelogram]

Absolutely agree. It's all about risk appetite.

I also agree. While I would be a little too scared to buy a carbon frame directly from China, I would have no fear of buying a Chinese frame being sold by a reputable discount shop on the internet.

So I would totally buy a generic Chinese frame being sold by Planet X or Nashbar, or someplace like that. I assume that the frames are at least reasonably safe for them to risk selling them, because they know they would face big lawsuits if a frame failure resulted in an accident involving serious injury.

 

[laziali]

Good point re re-seller liability. Suing people in China is (I imagine) not the easiest thing.

Where I'm from (Australia) our Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (used to be the Fair Trading Act) imposes liability on importers where the manufacturer has no presence in the jurisdiction - buyers of Chinese frames from eBay get to sue themselves.