tominator

Does anyone have any opinions about these ridiculously cheap Chinese or Taiwan made carbon fiber frames? This one's like $286 to start. I've seen some with buy it nows for as little as $400. I know a deal too good to be true probably is and you'll get no warranty but what do you guys think? Has anyone here taken a chance on these dirt cheap carbon frames?


https://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-Full-C...3A1|240%3A1318

mike868y

If you are willing to spend upwards of $500 on a frame which may fail in the first ride, then do as you may. On the other hand, it may also be a great bargain which will last for many years.

cazzooo

The real answer is we don't know.

metal_cowboy

Don't be too skeptical. Cannondale is moving their production offshore because they can be made by people who get paid $1 a hour versus $35 an hour made in America. I am sure if you did some investigation on the frame style, you will be able to find the same frame painted up and sold by a name brand manufacturer.

roshea

This is the 3rd or 4th thread this week asking the same question. The answer seems to be that no-one knows. Can someone PLEASE buy one of these things and provide a long-term test report, preferably within the next day or two?

Edit: there is a search function! Here's 3 recent threads about these or similar frames. Some other threads got deleted too.
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=521426
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=527143
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=523560

ezee

In some ways, it looks like a Kuota Kredo.

bigtea

Consider three economic forces that may be in play:

1) CF fabrication essentially requires the skills of a garment worker, not a machinist/welder
2) The price of oil now is about one third of its market high last year
3) There is a lot of unemployment in Asia due to The Great Recession

For all we know, those cheap frames could be a canceled order from a name-brand.

Bob Dopolina 

Incorrect.

And what's so damn difficult about welding, anyway? I learned it in 2 classes in my first year of high school. By the end of the semester I could run a bead with a TIG welder that rivals anything you see coming on today's high priced frames.

Big deal.

Monkeys can weld aluminum.

Correct.

Do we know what the price of oil was when the materials for this frame were shipped to the factory in China?

Do we know that the energy used to run the factory that produced this frame didn't come from cheap Chinese coal?

Correct, again.

This could be a winner.

It gets my vote.

BillyD

It's a gamble.

If you're young what the hell, you've got the rest of your life to heal. Sooner or later you'll get there.

There's an old adage that goes "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably IS". In other words, leave that cheap crap the 'F' alone.

jrobe

There is no chance that I would buy a no-name carbon frame on Ebay. If money was that tight, I would either buy a used frame or a steel / aluminum frame from a reputable company.

I would do the same if I was buying a car, television, etc..

ninjaman

Oh silly people, who do you think builds and designs the $3k Carbon frames you buy in your LBS? The same exact companies that sell their unbranded frames for way cheaper online. I'll always remember a story my girlfriend's dad told me about hiking in Sri Lanka. He came upon a man selling some gorgeous camping and hiking gear for basically nothing. He inspected it closely and commented "this looks just like some Patagonia gear I just bought for a couple grand" The man laughed at him and replied "Who do you think makes all that Patagonia stuff?"

operator

You r-tards realize that most of the quality CF frames come from Taiwan right? Or are we just rehashing racist sentiments again? Could we please stop associating quality on their place of manufacture and isntead assess it on it's own merits?

gbg

The problem is you don't know the origin of the frame? Sure it "could be" from the legitmate CF builders that produce high quality frames for many companies OR it could be from some cheap knock off place that doesn't give a s*** about what it makes (melamine in baby milk, lead paint on baby toys). It is a gamble if you can't confirm what factory makes it, and I don't know how you could.

ninjaman

Do you actually know what factory your name-brand carbon frame comes from? You know that name- brand factories can also make sub par product as well, yes? Many high-end brands change their frame production somewhat regularly, depending on who can give them a better pricepoint for the same thing. The best carbon fiber engineering and manufacturing comes out of Asia, and they've been doing it for a very long time.

johnny99

Even if the EBay bike does come from a first quality factory, you have no way of knowing if it was a factory reject or a used demo bike or even if it was stolen.

gbg

I think that any manufacturer that has a presence in the US (not just a web address) makes sure their suppliers are legitimate. Do you think they want law suits coming from people getting hurt on "dangerously inferior" frames they sold? Even though TREK haters will automatically disagree, the US made TREK frames are leaders in engineering and quality in CF frames. These are a small fraction of all the CF frames they sell though.

Banzai

They seem to be selling a lot of these...so if it was stolen that thief pulled off a remarkable heist, one that would probably make an entertaining movie.

Not to drag the C'dale subject up again, but for all my refusal to buy a C'dale made in China/Taiwan, I would consider one of these "generic" frames. Why?

With the C'dale, my bet is you'll still be paying US made prices, but all the extra money goes to the pockets of the CEOs who moved the job so they could pay out shareholders.

With the generic frame, you're paying a price commensurate with the price of labor involved. Considering that the price of labor for the "generic" frame and the "name brand" frame is the same, the only difference is the lining of Wall St. pockets.

In this case, I'm happy to try the "generic" frame.

biker128pedal

The head tube angle looks real shallow. Must be the picture?


They also sell fabric motorcycle covers.

Get one with a fork. Put Penny sticker on it.

https://cgi.ebay.com/New-Full-Carbon-Road-Bike-Frame-57cm-included-Fork_W0QQitemZ370183591288QQcmdZViewItemQQptZRoad_Bikes?hash=item370183591288&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_ trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A3|39%3A1|240%3A1318

BillyD

DITTO!

It might as well have "SUCKER" emblazoned on the downtube and "P.T.BARNUM" on the top.

daxr

Two possibilities (which are about the same for most cheap stuff on the market nowadays):

1) A big high-quality Asian factory builds excellent frames for the big names. They also build the same stuff to sell out the back door directly, or they unload their cancelled orders or excess production cheap when they need to. In which case its a great way to get a quality frame cheap.

2) A no-name no-rep factory buys a carbon frame and raw materials, mocks up some molds, and builds a pile of bike frames that look just like the good stuff. On the open market they can make a fortune, shut down the factory, and be long gone before anyone finds out who they were and that they didn't really know how to build bike frames in the first place.

Your guess is as good as mine which is the case.

MammaMia

The big risk you gonna take with those frames is that they came out of the "back door" of any factory, and this could mean they didnt pass the quality test.
It could be like this (happen very often, I got a friend in Shenzhen who tell me sometimes about it) or could be not, but I wouldnt risk.

ezee

OT. Just curious,
WTF does
Mes compaingnons cui j'amoie et cui j'aim,... Me di, chanson.
mean and what language is it supposed to be?

Dan515

I'm pretty sure it's French (or at least a dialect of French) and it goes something like "My companions that I love and still love... [something] song."

How could you not tell that's French?

sunburst

When I first went back to the store that sold me my Giant OCR C1, I was going on about how much I liked it, and the salesman said Colnago rebrands the same frame (and I think he said they sell it for $1750). That's one end of Taiwan quality. I'm sure they (i.e. Taiwan-based companies) make lots of low end bike stuff also.

chummdizzle

If you want cheap... go aluminum and buy a Leader. My first TT bike was a Leader that I bought for $250 on eBay, it was a great frame and came from an American company with a real warranty and customer service you can actually talk to. I sold it when I got my Cervelo P2-SL, which I recently had to sell and cut down to just my Soloist for road/TT, but I'm thinking about getting another Leader.