Who on BR has bought a 'cheap' Chinese carbon frame?

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Comments

  • sturmey
    sturmey Posts: 964
    If I was buying a bike from someone like Specialized, and they determined the "defect I was complaining about was user error/damage/abuse...complainging doesn't mean they'll give me a new one, does it?

    Am thinking chiefly about a situation where you have received a product found to be defective from the word go.

    If it's come in a box from Shanghai it will be a lot more hassle sorting it out than it would if you'd bought it from an established retailer in this country.
  • 1stGenRex
    1stGenRex Posts: 84
    well yes, but buying someting in person vs buying something over the internet (from presumably somewhere NOT local) always has that risk.
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    1stGenRex wrote:
    well yes, but buying someting in person vs buying something over the internet (from presumably somewhere NOT local) always has that risk.

    True, but in the case of Ribble there is the irritation of trecking up to Preston if need be which is a lot less irritating than nipping over to Shanghai :lol:
    Faster than a tent.......
  • tri-sexual
    tri-sexual Posts: 672
    more reviews and pics please from owners of these frames please.
    do anyone know or have experience of a source for groupsets and wheels (from far east or anywhere else)-looked on alibaba before where they offer really cheap top end group sets but dont know how trustworthy these sellers are.

    i am planning a trip to hong kong/ china (might even make a trip to taiwan) late summer this year, anyone who has dealings with these suppliers please leave details of company, contact details of the seller (name, address, phone number etc), cost they paid etc etc, as much info as possible please. post details on this forum or PM me.
    i can go and vist these companies in person and give everyone here who is interested an honest and unbiased view of these companies and their products. also i know that the chinese also make titanium bike frames, has anybody bought one, if so please leave pics and reviews and all other details please.

    not sure how feasible it will be but if there is alot of interest it may be possible to negoiate bulk rates (wholesale) rather than retail prices. these can then be shipped in a container which can further reduce costs.
  • 1stGenRex
    1stGenRex Posts: 84
    Rolf F wrote:
    1stGenRex wrote:
    well yes, but buying someting in person vs buying something over the internet (from presumably somewhere NOT local) always has that risk.

    True, but in the case of Ribble there is the irritation of trecking up to Preston if need be which is a lot less irritating than nipping over to Shanghai :lol:

    it would be equally annoying for me, I suspect, as I'm in the US :P
  • Mark Elvin
    Mark Elvin Posts: 997
    I'm looking at a carbon track frame from Chine, will watch this thread with interest.
    2012 Cannondale Synapse
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    1stGenRex wrote:
    Rolf F wrote:
    1stGenRex wrote:
    well yes, but buying someting in person vs buying something over the internet (from presumably somewhere NOT local) always has that risk.

    True, but in the case of Ribble there is the irritation of trecking up to Preston if need be which is a lot less irritating than nipping over to Shanghai :lol:

    it would be equally annoying for me, I suspect, as I'm in the US :P

    Emigrate :lol:
    Faster than a tent.......
  • Muztard
    Muztard Posts: 160
    Wow, I too have been looking to spend money I don't have on a frame I probably can't justify based on my ability.

    This might be a solution, a decent carbon frame at a fraction of the cost. If it turns out that I find carbon has significant benefits on my current aluminum steeds, maybe I can start saving up for a big named carbon (or not if the Chinese frame ticks most of the boxes)
  • alfablue
    alfablue Posts: 8,497
    sturmey wrote:
    If I was buying a bike from someone like Specialized, and they determined the "defect I was complaining about was user error/damage/abuse...complainging doesn't mean they'll give me a new one, does it?

    Am thinking chiefly about a situation where you have received a product found to be defective from the word go.

    If it's come in a box from Shanghai it will be a lot more hassle sorting it out than it would if you'd bought it from an established retailer in this country.
    If you read the T&C's in the eBay advert it says that you must inspect the frame before signing for it with the courier as any defects found after this will be deemed to have occurred after receipt. This places a lot of pressure on the buyer to do a detailed examination on the doorstep - not all defects will be detected. I am not sure the distance selling regulations will be enforceable with a Chinese vendor, somehow. . .

    As above, if the frames were £150/£200 then worth the risk, but anything over £350 you can start to find comparable frames from UK vendors.
  • Muztard
    Muztard Posts: 160
    [/quote]As above, if the frames were £150/£200 then worth the risk, but anything over £350 you can start to find comparable frames from UK vendors.[/quote]

    Not everyone wants a frame from Ribble, nothing against Ribble because I might get one.

    If my budget is £1,500 - £2,000 for a frame but spend £500 on a Chinese frame and that turns out to be a dog. My fingers are burnt, a lesson is learnt and I post my comments for the benefit of others but it still leaves me with enough to buy a decent UK sourced frame.

    If my budget is £500 for a new frame and I spend £300 - £400 on a Chinese sourced frame which turns out to be a dog..... well I'd be a very sad and disappointed.
  • mcrdave
    mcrdave Posts: 501
    I didn't want a Ribble, everyone's got one and I don't believe in paying between £200 - £500 more than a chinese carbon frame direct for the sake of a few stickers.

    I saw it as an odds game, what are the chances of me receiving a duff frame (by that I mean poorly finished, incomplete or in worst case scenario dangerous) when I had spent hours researching this on international forums and found bad reports to be so few and far between? They are extremely slim indeed (alibaba aside) and it paid off.

    So I put it to the people on here saying this is a bad idea, do your research, put the hours in then you can make an informed decision.

    As far as titanium goes, there doesn't seem to be the same set up as with the carbon frame so bargains are very few and far between, I think the material cost is so high that there isn't the same margins as with carbon. Only far east titanium manufacturer I know of is http://bikesoul.com/2009/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=40
  • GoingCarbon
    GoingCarbon Posts: 99
    mcrdave wrote:
    I didn't want a Ribble, everyone's got one and I don't believe in paying between £200 - £500 more than a chinese carbon frame direct for the sake of a few stickers.

    Bravo.
  • calvjones
    calvjones Posts: 3,850
    mcrdave wrote:
    I didn't want a Ribble, everyone's got one and I don't believe in paying between £200 - £500 more than a chinese carbon frame direct for the sake of a few stickers.

    I saw it as an odds game, what are the chances of me receiving a duff frame (by that I mean poorly finished, incomplete or in worst case scenario dangerous) when I had spent hours researching this on international forums and found bad reports to be so few and far between? They are extremely slim indeed (alibaba aside) and it paid off.

    So I put it to the people on here saying this is a bad idea, do your research, put the hours in then you can make an informed decision.

    As far as titanium goes, there doesn't seem to be the same set up as with the carbon frame so bargains are very few and far between, I think the material cost is so high that there isn't the same margins as with carbon. Only far east titanium manufacturer I know of is http://bikesoul.com/2009/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=40

    Not the material per se but the production can't benefit from economies of scale in the same way as carbon - i.e. throw in and out of moulds v actual welding.

    Heard a great horror story from local LBS about a guy who visited a Chinese factory that supplies [insert v large UK retailer-sold-olympic-althlete-branded] frames - he says there's a good reason you can't buy a naked frame from them...

    But then, he was trying to sell me a de Rosa :D
    ___________________

    Strava is not Zen.
  • alfablue
    alfablue Posts: 8,497
    edited January 2011
    Hey, I'm not saying its a bad idea at all, just the margins seem to be at best £200 cheaper, and if the delivered frames arrive costing £500 with duty paid then the saving is £0ish. I believe you can get hold of unpainted/unbranded Ribble (Dedacciai) frames (Highonbikes is but one source). I am fully on board with not following the crowd.

    As for Titanium, XACD can apparently build a frame to your custom spec for around £450 delivered.
  • amaferanga
    amaferanga Posts: 6,789
    Pedalforce group buys are another option.
    More problems but still living....
  • 45rpm
    45rpm Posts: 43
    Heres what i built using an ebay carbon frame
    [img][/img]5351230567_c0d949bb48.jpg
    roadie by zippity doo daah, on Flickr
  • robz400
    robz400 Posts: 160
    A lot of comments about it being comparable to designer suits etc..... but surely the point is that you can get the same frame, not a cheap copy for alot less...

    I was blown away by the De Rosa R838 but after some digging on this site and others its the same frame as the ribble stealth. Not a copy but the same frame, from the same factory just for £1000 less!!!!

    If I buy the De Rosa I get a lovely bike... If I buy the ribble I get the same bike but with better groupset, a torque wrench, some lights, a workstand, a £100 cycling computer and nice carbon bottle cage for slightly less money!!!!!!!
  • 45rpm
    45rpm Posts: 43
    sturmey wrote:
    I have nothing against these frames, nor anything in favour of Ribbble, just it seems they have similar looking frames at prices that wouldn't seem to differ too much from these Chinese ones. Are they significantly better value than Ribble's offering

    +1

    Word for word more or less what I was going to say myself.

    These Ebay jobs are not significantly cheaper than the Preston offerings yet they present a host of potential problems to the buyer if somethng isn't right with the product. You are at the mercy of these Ebay traders. Who are you going to complain to if something's not right? Ebay don't wanna know these days when something goes wrong for the buyer.

    If the frames were,say, £150 delivered, I would call that a good buy. At their current price I would say they are a gamble.

    All of this crossed my mind but i took the gamble and it paid off. If your willing to do alot of shopping around for parts and put alot of time in then you can come away with a bargain of a build and learn a lot too. But then with this you don't have a supplier to go back to should anything go wrong. If this is a concern then stick with a Ribble or such like for a good value build.
  • thespanishadam
    thespanishadam Posts: 341
    I personally don't see these frames being that much of a bargain. Not when considering the PX nanolight at the moment...

    http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRP ... nd-headset
  • Intherain
    Intherain Posts: 86
    [
    These Ebay jobs are not significantly cheaper than the Preston offerings yet they present a host of potential problems to the buyer if somethng isn't right with the product. You are at the mercy of these Ebay traders. Who are you going to complain to if something's not right? Ebay don't wanna know these days when something goes wrong for the buyer.

    If the frames were,say, £150 delivered, I would call that a good buy. At their current price I would say they are a gamble.

    If you buy via ebay then pay by Paypal and you will have some protection at least for 45 days which should cover receipt of the frame and time to check for problems.
    Granted, it may be tricky in the long run if you encounter a problem after a year or 2. But then I guess that is the trade off and why there is a price saving - some people want the comfort of shop to go back to. I guess its why some people buy cars privately and others buy from a dealer network. Those who have had probs reported on the bikereview forum seem to have had no problems in getting replacements shipped over.
    Yes, I like riding in the rain...
  • Mark Elvin
    Mark Elvin Posts: 997
    I've been thinking of this one to use as the basis of a nice fixie as it has horizontal dropouts......

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12k-Carbon-Triath ... 255ffcf104
    2012 Cannondale Synapse
  • vs
    vs Posts: 468
    I was blown away by the De Rosa R838 but after some digging on this site and others its the same frame as the ribble stealth. Not a copy but the same frame, from the same factory just for £1000 less!!!!

    that's why I got a Viner; OK I paid a lot of money for it but I know what I've got has been made and not mass produced; I know it's not one 'these frames' re-badged!
  • jonmack
    jonmack Posts: 522
    thespanishadam wrote:
    I personally don't see these frames being that much of a bargain. Not when considering the PX nanolight at the moment...

    http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRP ... nd-headset

    Finally they've got the price down where it should be, considering it is just a rebadged FM-R830

    b4e73c909a5f614e770f4211699dbf176g.jpg

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Super-Light-Road- ... 3a61a65a1f
  • thespanishadam
    thespanishadam Posts: 341
    That means for £500 it's pretty good value through PX. Should there be any problems down the line it should just be a matter of picking up the phone.

    It just shows you how much companies try to charge for a lick of paint and some stickers..
  • jonmack
    jonmack Posts: 522
    Yeah if that was the frame I wanted and it was a choice between buying a PX or one from the far east for the same money then i'd go with PX, purely for the "just in case" factor of it. I would imagine trying to deal with a warranty issue with the ebay seller wouldn't be too easy.
  • amaferanga
    amaferanga Posts: 6,789
    jonmack wrote:
    thespanishadam wrote:
    I personally don't see these frames being that much of a bargain. Not when considering the PX nanolight at the moment...

    http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRP ... nd-headset

    Finally they've got the price down where it should be, considering it is just a rebadged FM-R830

    b4e73c909a5f614e770f4211699dbf176g.jpg

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Super-Light-Road- ... 3a61a65a1f

    So that frame would cost near on £700 by the time you've paid import duty (4.7% I believe), VAT and courier 'administration' charges. Add a custom pain job and decals and the P-X at £500 begins to look like a real bargain.

    I think the RRP of £1199 for the frame/fork shows that they only really wanted to sell Nanolight complete bikes (my complete bike with part SRAM Red groupset, carbon bars/stem/seatpost and wheels only cost about £300 more than that) and that they have always been planning on selling them at a massively reduced price.
    More problems but still living....
  • jonmack
    jonmack Posts: 522
    amaferanga wrote:
    So that frame would cost near on £700 by the time you've paid import duty (4.7% I believe), VAT and courier 'administration' charges. Add a custom pain job and decals and the P-X at £500 begins to look like a real bargain.

    I think the RRP of £1199 for the frame/fork shows that they only really wanted to sell Nanolight complete bikes (my complete bike with part SRAM Red groupset, carbon bars/stem/seatpost and wheels only cost about £300 more than that) and that they have always been planning on selling them at a massively reduced price.

    Assuming you have to pay import duty and VAT. Most of the people who's experiences I've read said they didn't have to pay any of that. Some people get lucky, others don't. In all the times that I've brought stuff over from the US/Far East i've been caught less than a dozen times, i've been getting stuff from abroad for the last 4 or 5 years, in fact I had a parcel arrive from america this week which didn't get stopped. Personally I like the raw cf look, couldn't care less about what the bike says on the down tube as long as it rides nicely, then again the next frame I'm looking at buying is gonna be a Cervélo or a Canyon, so maybe I am a brand-whore.

    That's similar to Boardmans, if you enquire about a Boardman frame only the price of it is about £100 less than the full bike, because Halfords don't wanna sell the frame only.
  • mcrdave
    mcrdave Posts: 501
    amaferanga wrote:
    jonmack wrote:
    thespanishadam wrote:
    I personally don't see these frames being that much of a bargain. Not when considering the PX nanolight at the moment...

    http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRP ... nd-headset

    Finally they've got the price down where it should be, considering it is just a rebadged FM-R830

    b4e73c909a5f614e770f4211699dbf176g.jpg

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Super-Light-Road- ... 3a61a65a1f

    So that frame would cost near on £700 by the time you've paid import duty (4.7% I believe), VAT and courier 'administration' charges. Add a custom pain job and decals and the P-X at £500 begins to look like a real bargain.

    I think the RRP of £1199 for the frame/fork shows that they only really wanted to sell Nanolight complete bikes (my complete bike with part SRAM Red groupset, carbon bars/stem/seatpost and wheels only cost about £300 more than that) and that they have always been planning on selling them at a massively reduced price.

    In reality, you don't pay import duty from most Far East frames, creative labelling gets round that. VAT and 'admin' nope. Paint jobs, about £20 - 30 extra from most of the ebay sellers to your own custom design.

    So take this frame from a trusted seller:

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/full-Carbon-matt- ... 230d32b6ed

    £370 is the price you pay, nothing more.

    The Planet X does look like a bargain right now, so does everything in the January sales but what about the other 11 months?
  • 1stGenRex
    1stGenRex Posts: 84
    45rpm wrote:
    Heres what i built using an ebay carbon frame
    [img][/img]5351230567_c0d949bb48.jpg
    roadie by zippity doo daah, on Flickr

    :shock: that's sexy
  • GoingCarbon
    GoingCarbon Posts: 99
    thespanishadam wrote:
    I personally don't see these frames being that much of a bargain. Not when considering the PX nanolight at the moment...

    http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/FRP ... nd-headset

    Jeez, that sounds like quiet a reduction £1,199 to £499. But are they any good? Any got one of these or their predecessor and can provide a review?

    That said, I still like the idea of importing my own in Matte White.

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