China Carbon: Saddles

Marcuzcycle

after looking for a new saddle for my road bike i came across carbon saddles. now there is the obvious argument with carbon saddles being to hard or them being very comfy because of the light weight flexibility. but these were no normal carbon saddles, for starters they were under £45, so i looked further into it. it turns out they were all chinese clones.
they were mostly copies of the san marco aspide superleggera or the pinarello most saddle. the original saddles are way over the £200 mark and the copies are still 100% real carbon fibre and weigh around the same if not less (95g) than the originals. And the china copies are not just saddles, they do whole frames going by the names of FM098 or FM066 ect depending on what frame its copying and these sell for around £300! whole carbon frames in the original pinarello, bmc, trek ect shapes for £300! and you can actually buy whole fake bikes from china too! the bikes are all copies of tdf bikes like the Pinarello dogma but with original groupsets and they sell for £1000!
so this begs the question what would you buy?

*see poll*

diamonddog

Wouldn't buy either of them!

Markjaspi

I have always been very suspicious of these Chinese imports and as such have stayed away from wheels, stems handle bars etc.

Like you, I recently saw an eBay seller with a Superlegga at £38, I've thought about buying a UK stock one for a while, but did not want to she'll out over £200 to find out it was too uncomfortable.

So I thought what the hell, give it a go, and it turned up this week. Now it only took 12 days to get here, and there where no custom charges.

It looks no different to the original (yes I've had an original in my hands in a LBS) and the construction seems as good. The real test was my first ride yesterday, only 25 miles but a good pace.

It's narrower than my last saddle so sits on by backside a little differently, and I could defiantly tell by the end, but I would not say it was uncomfortable in anyway.

Vibration seemed OK, but I run 25mm on the back of the bike and have recently purchased a Canyon VCLS seatpost (off a BR memeber) to hopefully reduce vibrations further.

BTW I'm not particularly heavy around 69kg and I'm sure only time will tell if it breaks on me.

I will be able to post more views on comfort and how the paint finish etc. fares over the next few days as I have 49 miles tonight, 30 tomorrow and a sportif on Sunday.

But I would say go for it.

Marcuzcycle

I have to say, alot of the reviews of the saddles have been very positive and nobody seems to be complaining about comfort. The fact they sell a Yellow and black one to match my bike tempts me further.

edten

I would stay away. Who knows what the short cuts made in manufacture, testing or quality control are. Misplaced or not I have greater confidence in using products from reputable brands. I recognise there are failures of such products I'm still happy to part with more cash and be a little more at ease but then I'm not someone who would ride carbon bars or stems...so maybe I'm just overly risk adverse!

lawrences

Down below is the last place you want a carbon splinter if it does ever break.

Grill

The Chinese copies of full carbon saddles are soft as hell and flex like Arnie, not to mention they're quite prone to failure. I ride an S-Works Toupe because it doesn't flex and if it does break at least there is someone that can be held accountable. This is the same with all knock-off products.

MickTheMove

A friend, it's always a friend buys stock for a major retailer of sports gear in the uk and he says most manufacturers have two facilities , one for original and one for knock off, this lets them keep rock bottom prices for the buyers.

It's risky buying fake esp if its a safety issue but in reality you are paying the correct price for the item, without the marketing, branding and massive profit mark up!