Chinese carbon seatposts, bars and stems

MrGrumpy

Ok folks, was looking to bling up my carbon steed with a sprinkle of carbon finishing kit and been looking on the net and ebay. How dodgy are the likes of the seatposts etc. Stems and bars I have to say would make me sweat a bit if they were cheap knocks offs however I`m interested in anyones experience. Just looking to lighten my bike a wee bit and flash it up.

sloppyschleckonds

UTFS

cougie

Some carbon bits are heavier than alloy. Stick to the brand names for stuff you really don't want to break.

w00dster

I'm going through a similar exercise of reducing the weight of my best bike at the moment.
It's all personal preference with regards to buying carbon parts from ebay and Chinese sellers. Some people have done this with no issues, personally I see things in a Risk / Reward situation. My own opinion is that the risk of part failure of an ebay purchase is higher than a known make I have used over the years.
My preference would be to drip feed the purchases, so only when you can afford it buy genuine parts you are confident have been quality tested.
I've just put on a new carbon saddle, seat post and peddles. Saved a fair bit but not enormous amounts, already have a carbon stem but bars are the next "upgrade" for me.
As an aside, the hills are still damn hard to get up even with my wallet being noticably lighter!!

Bobbinogs

Personally, if my objective was to lose weight from a bike then I wouldn't start with stem, seatpost or handlebars. One could drop a serious amount of cash to save probably less than the weight of a full water bottle. For me, I would just look at wheels/tyres and then concentrate on riding the bike. I know this may come over as the common sense (read, boring) approach but I often do group rides and time and time again the bike weight makes very little difference when it comes to performance.