speshelite

Here's the real deal:

Products ? ERGON BIKE

An independent test winner among 'suspension' seat posts:

Best soft-riding rigid seatposts for road, dirt, and gravel - BikeRadar USA

The design has already been stolen by chinese sellers and is being sold for a fraction of the cost of the original. Honestly, the knockoff prices are very attractive but of course I am concerned about reliability and safety.

Does anyone own either the original or it's knockoff? I don't doubt QC is vastly superior for the actual product but wondering if the knockoff is serviceable.

Wheeljack23

Here's the thing with items made in China. They can make some of the best and with highest quality things. But they can also unload some of the most horrible things. It really depends on the Chinese manufacturer and materials that they are making these "knock-off" items from. Speaking from an engineering perspective most companies that make replica items don't completely reverse engineer the actual item. They may copy the design, material used, and partially the process of making it but it's never 100%. Though there are a lot of Chinese manufacturers that make very good parts, even some of the best.
Consider what the item is made from. If its aluminum or any type of metal then the replica can be pretty reliable. If its carbon or any type of composite material. It comes down to the process of production. You'll have a 50/50 chance.

Maelochs

I think you'd be crazy to buy this.

And I own a Chinese CF frame.

The way I see it, something like that post cannot be copied ... its shape and appearance can be, but a part that small and that technical is All about construction. Careful lay-up, careful design ... to work, it has to be built very precisely.

The knock-off could very well have nothing but the external shape. Could be a complete identical copy ... Could be .... you can test it.

Marcus_Ti

I'd buy it. But only after riding it on a stationary trainer or rollers all winter would I ride it on the road.

As with most look-a-likes and knock-offs. You don't pays your money, you takes your chances. What is the worst thing to happen from a failed seatpost on the road under load? What would the medical bill cost?


After you use quantum hyper matrix algebra to work that out....the 100% authentic original seems cheap.

speshelite

I don't exactly have the utmost confidence in the chinese knockoffs obviously.

However, while they are far cheaper than the original, they're still considerably more expensive than standard seatposts. A $2 or $5 loss might be tolerable on a cheap knockoff taillight; buyers might be more upset after losing $80 to $100 on a failed seatpost.

If they were failing to some significant degree, I would think these problems would be noted on the typical auction and seller sites (ali and flea) at least occasionally with poor seller feedback. Or maybe it's enough of a niche product that relatively few are sold and so even if they do fail at a relatively high rate we wouldn't really know about it as buyers work out a solution individually either with the seller or with the pay site.

But yeah I don't feel like being a beta tester/guinea pig for this or other products. I know at least one other forum member uses the knockoff product; maybe he'll chime in eventually, if not others.

Marcus_Ti

What most of these wild-west companies do.....they have a lemon product or a bad sale.....they reverse incorporate and close their store, and re-open the next day under a new name and corporate identity whilst simultaneously shedding any and all liability.


You see the same gambit here in the USA and Canada everywhere, with new housing developments.

Every brand-new house has a "lifetime warranty" from the builders of that subdivision on parts and labor. Catch being is that the minute that subdivision is finished being built, the warranting company dissolves itself...moving on to another subdivision under a different corporate name/identity. Thus making your "lifetime" warranty worthless paper. And in 5 years when you discover the leaks in your improperly-poured foundation, and you find your windows weren't caulked, the subfloor not glued, the structure not sound, and the roof improperly installed....the guys who committed the crime are long gone, and you're the sucker stuck holding the check begging Mike Holmes to come fix your 5 year old condemned building.


Which long story short (too late) makes reviews on online stores worthless. They can rebrand overnight and dump the old identity baggage on a moment's notice.

trailflow1

It's a carbon tube not a plasma generator. It's a simple thing to construct. They have copied it, it's been done and it works. I've been riding a chinese CF3 copy over 2 years. It's been fine. I weigh 75KG. It's constructed of 2 separate carbon posts. If both were to break exactly at the same time simultaneously that would be some extra bad luck. If it ever did break i would think one of the posts would break first and at least give you some kind of a warning signal.

The suspension effect works but it's subtle. The spring movement isnt huge. But its there. It doesnt do much for big hits. Only smaller vibrations and small bumps etc. Does it have the exact same effect as the genuine article ? i dont know. I cannot say because i've never directly compared both. But i cant imagine the real version to give a magical carpet ride that's on a whole different level. i just dont see it. Does it really need careful layup and precision to do its job ? im not so sure. It's a basic leaf spring based on the small deflection of 2 half sized posts. I dont believe anything special is involved here. The overall weight of the post is around 230 grams on my scales. So it isn't trying to be any kind of weight weenie superlight carbon post that would require extra attention to the lay up.

bikebreak

I don't want to rain on your ride, but if just one of those posts breaks, the other one will most likely not be able to support you by itself and you may find yourself on the ground all of a sudden.


I assume the dimensions of the fancy posts are easy to copy, but doubt the Chinese copiers use the same grade and strength of carbon and resin.


Good luck. Let us know if it is still intact in a couple years and I may buy one myself.

trailflow1

That's entirely possible of course. But my theory is your legs would snap into action and support and save you before coming anywhere near close to hitting the ground.

Maelochs

I snapped two CF seat posts on one bike before i gave up and went alloy. In both cases a was less than 100 yards from home and going very slowly, preparing to enter an intersection. In both cases I had an instant's warning.

If I had been around the corner and down the road a ways .... particularly if I was warmed up and maybe starting to ramp up my speed .... i don't think the results would have been as fortuitous.

I still would have had an instant's warning but not sure I would have had time to do anything with it. Not really interested in further testing.

speshelite

Are you a Clyde? 300 lbs? 400 lbs?

Maelochs

I am Fred, the Original Clyde.

Just can't win.

02Giant 

There is the chance the "knock off" is coming out the back door of the manufacturer of the branded part.

hueyhoolihan

i've been buying noname, carbon, stems, handlebars, frames, forks, saddles, and seatposts from ebay for years now, without incident.

i've also removed the tag from my mattress, and yet the feds have yet to respond.

livin' on the edge.

Maelochs

I ride some Toseek carbon bars ... direct from China ... not quite sure who they are pretending to be, but they were really cheap for CF aero bars (Look like 3T aeronovas, as I recall.) I have them clamped securely in a non-name CF stem (might not even be from China ... they could be lying, maybe it came from Vietnam.)

Seat posts though .... or rather, that one in particular ... I would want to hear a lot more success stories before I decided to be "The Next Guinea Pig," or "The Late Lab Rat."

Until I read the post above ... I would have turned you in for tearing off that tag. People like you destroy order everywhere, and bring chaos.

99Klein 

D e a t h !

alexdi

Lots of FUD in this thread. I've had a knockoff for over a year. I just bought another one. I like it so much that I won't buy a bike that doesn't have a round seat tube. Side by side with the original, I doubt anyone could tell them apart. Even the weight is identical. My copy is the slightest bit too wide to easily fit into my seat tube, however, so I actually lubricated the post to insert it. It isn't going anywhere. I trust it completely at 175 pounds. No one will snap this post.

It's smooth enough to make my choice of rear tire width almost irrelevant. I have found that higher cadences (>120ish) demand a smooth pedal stroke. If you're not pulling while you push, the seat can bounce a bit. I'm usually out of the saddle when I'm spinning that fast.