prairiepedaler

I'm looking for a 27.2 / 400mm no elastomer suspension seatpost.

I am familiar with the Suntour NCX post which rates well. A little more than I want to spend, and an older fashioned traditional spring style would be fine (like an EVO Cushy). However, this link turned up on Goolag >>> www.aliexpress.com/item/32907072522.html

Spidey senses detect BS. Is Spidey out to lunch? Maybe this seller was a thief at the Suntour factory. Maybe they are factory B stock. Never dealt with Ali before and generally avoid the PAC Rim for buying direct. What do your spidey senses tell you on this one?

2old

My senses are to stay away from Ali, but for $10 how wrong can you go?

Bald Paul

More than likely counterfeit.

veganbikes

It is a fake for sure or just a picture of them that they are selling. I don't recommend buying anything from Alibaba and his 40 thieves but I don't like supporting thief culture and try to avoid sweatshops and poor labor conditions.

I generally don't recommend pogo sticks for seat posts they change the fit of your bike and can do a bit more damage to the knees. Certainly cheap in every sense of the word but not a useful thing. Would rather have a slightly more flexible rigid post and save money or actually spend the money and get a Kinekt post and be comfortable and not change my position so much.

tFUnK

The $9 item refers to a shim. The post itself is $90.
That said, despite the pricing, I generally lack trust in the authenticity/branding of items found on AliExpress, unless it's a known Chinese brand like Superteam, ZTTO, Sun Race, Roswheel, etc.

icemilkcoffee 

As tFunk said, you have to click on one of the color choices so it shows the selection for the seatpost, and not the shim. The seatpost is $90.
I don't know if this piece is good or bad, but in general I've bought a lot of cycling small items and tools, etc from Aliexpress and they all performed as expected. China builds the majority of the bicycles in the world. It would be presumptuous to think they don't know what they are doing.

Iride01 

I've bought some pretty good stuff from AliExpress. Never bought anything for bikes though. Just like eBay and Amazon, they are just a place that allows other sellers to post their stuff for you to buy. Some is good some is bad. It's entirely buyer beware.

Shipment tracking is a nightmare. So just don't try. Stuff being shipped might arrive in a week or it might take over a month. Usually it gets hung up in US customs and you sometimes don't know it's left there till it arrives on your doorstep.

nomadmax 

I wouldn't buy anything that bears the weight of my body, or even part of it, at ALIExpress.

himespau 

The possibility of having to go to the ER and explain why you have shattered seatpost fragments up your butthole sounds like a pretty big discouragement to me. Not a part I want to cheap out on.

Wildwood 

Have purchased bike products from mainland China = Al handlebars, tubes, pedals/cleats, jerseys.
AliExpress has been fine for my 4 or 5 orders.

Maelochs

If it is worth it to you to spend the time, energy, and money to be sure you are getting cheated, go ahead.

2old

Can't imagine that happening unless you ride without a seat, but if that's your thing....... You seem like an excellent entry into the ignore file!

unterhausen

I only buy bike parts from Aliexpress if they have some honest, nearly unpronounceable Chinese name. Brand names, no.

indyfabz

Atlas Shrugged

Like most items on these forums, those with the strongest opinions are those with the least experience with the topic being discussed. I have purchased an untold number of items from AliExpress, from misc. Screws and hardware to Garmin mounts without issue and at incredible savings. I have purchased numerous Shimano parts, including XTR Disc rotors, brake pads and derailleur cages. All function perfectly and, other than coming in bulk packaging rather than retail box identical. A recent example is I wanted a Fenix Watch adapter to Garmin mount, which from Garmin was $70.00 from AliExpress was $10.00. The item looked identical and was so specialized there was no chance that this was a so-called knockoff.

prairiepedaler

I don't need to experience jumping out of a mile high plane without a parachute to know what will happen if you don't have one and deploy it. Thanks tho, Shrugged.

prairiepedaler

I'd say, it depends. I haven't heard of any chinese made electric bikes bursting into flame, but their TOTL electric automobiles seem to.

prairiepedaler

Thanks for spotting that shim bit. Missed it.

Atlas Shrugged

Good point; however, in this case, it is more like jumping off a stepstool, and tens of thousands of people have done it before you! You initially appeared to post a sincere question about a price too low to be true, Once clarified and the price is much more in line, you still seem to have an agenda regarding AliExpress.
There are numerous videos of other EVs catching fire, American, German and Japanese. Why select this one out of the thousands?

tempocyclist

I've had good and bad experiences on AliExpress, with the bad being, in my opinion, my own fault.

Good - Have bought a carbon seatpost which now has 1000's of miles on it with no dramas. Have bought a few jerseys, and some other small accessories.

Bad - Bought a very cheap "3T Carbon Aero" handlebar copy counterfeit. So flexy that I didn't dare put in on my bike!

indyfabz

Which suggests you should probably stick to a LBS.

easyupbug 

I did vendor evaluations in the PRC for many years and suspect these could be genuine as the pricing is not that low and they seem to have a return policy. They look so good I think the worse case would be an end run after the Suntour QA/QC engineers left and they had the manufacturing facilities and likely some parts inventory so made them, which might be fine if they did not substitute. THe problem with the culture is it is the opposite in a way of ours where if you cheat someone bad on you, and in the PRC my take was if you can get the better of someone in a deal that is on them for not being careful.

prairiepedaler

The site wasn't obviously clear. Many European sites are and no problems with them. But, thanks for the valuable contribution.

prairiepedaler

Yes, I have also read plenty on Chinese business dealings and it's pathological pragmatism. Western (i.e. high trust) societies certainly differ from China. In China, loyalty is applied only to the point that it pays to be loyal and not an iota beyond. Beyond that, anything goes. In China, trust exists only in the immediate familial realm or by the very closest of friendship ties.

I'm going to pass on the seatpost, or anything else, via Ali. A few posters of virtuous signal in here convinced me of that. Thanks to them.

Wildwood 

Mods please move to P&R or close the thread. OP has spoken. . Nothing more to say, beyond a biased rant.

Trust me, I'm from a high trust society.