- This topic has 97 replies, 31 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 5 months ago by
wheelz.
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February 14, 2012 at 1:19 pm #15095
please dont shout, or laugh out loud. i just orders one of these!
[link removed by admin]
im poor and would never be able to afford the real thing. am going to fit 105 groupset,a nd some nice wheels! anyone had an experience with these frames? wish me luck. 😕
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Hi all,
Well its into its 2nd
Hi all,
Well its into its 2nd winter now, ok, its done a fare few miles and not all of them in perfect conditions. The frame has held up great, Its taken a battering, always being shoved into the back of my car for trips to the Lakes, sportives or such like, the paint is starting to get a bit chipped, but that’s down to my own lack of care, but overall its held up well. It still rides great, no rattles, creaks or groans, its as true as the day we built it. The Sram Rival, and Mavic Kysirium wheels were faultless and have now been transplanted onto my Dolan “winter bike”, yes its real Dolan, although I did buy the frame on eBay, and build it up….!!I`m unsure what my winter project will be. My Chinarillo is sitting up in the loft (not worth a bean 2nd hand), wrapped up in bubble wrap, so, will I source (from the same manufacturer), another Chinese frame, or will my LBS come good and supply me with a “proper” frame.
Watch this space.
Hi all,
its been fine,
Hi all,its been fine, completed about 3000 miles and have only had to replace the head bearings!
and here she is in all her splendour above lake Derwent.
meeces2pieces
Thanks for your input on the
Thanks for your input on the frame set. Can you update us on your experience on this ride?I purchased one just last week and can only hope it is a quality steed.
Thanks
Stevie B
Hi Wheelz
Couple of
Hi WheelzCouple of questions
How is the frame riding now ?
Plus do you have the name of the seller you purchased from on DHGate ?
drheaton
Been reading a few forum
Been reading a few forum posts too on other sites and a lot of bike ‘manufacturers’, people like Ritte Van Vlaanderen, buy blanks from China and Taiwan, paint them up and sell them on for a tidy profit. What you get by paying 4, 5 or even 10 times the cost of going direct to the manufacturer is a decent warranty and some after-sales support.If you’re happy to not pay thousands of pounds for a warranty (that sometimes are so full of holes they’re so far from watertight they may as well be sieve) I don’t see the problem of buying a frame direct from a Chinese factory. All you’re doing is cutting out two or three middle men all wanting their cut.
For anyone interested the names that kept coming up were DengFu and HongFu (as direct sales selling carbon frames for as little as $300 link) and PedalForce who’re one step down the line and provide some kind of warranty at around 100% markup. I also read that PedalForce sell overstocks of the frames Ritte uses.
The general consensus is that, if you can get past the initial mental issue of buying direct without the after sales, you’re likely to get a great frame at a fraction of the cost, there’ll always be horror stories but there’s also a lot of good reviews too.
For me, the big draw would be designing and painting up a blank frame into something unique and one of a kind. Likewise, without a name on them they might be less appealing to thieves and whole lot cheaper to insure/replace.
Strathlubnaig
I guess that even if the
I guess that even if the knock off frames were identical to the real thing, even coming out the back door of the plant, the long term effect is the manufacturer themselves have to spend time money effort etc in R&D and marketing the original frame, then they make zilch because of the knock offs, so in the long run it canny be a good thing really.have a read of this.
i
have a read of this.i immagine most of you already no this, but som wont.
Raleigh
Well Said.
Just ride
Well Said.Just ride guys.
Until your frame falls in half.
Well my friend drheaton,
I
Well my friend drheaton,I took my bike into a LBS that deals with high end frames/bikes and is a main dealer for Pinarillo! Although they were understandably “not over the moon” with me/it, they were good enough sports to run an “experts” eye over it for me.
So after a few long minuted of umming and aring, calling the mech`s from out back, they got down to picking holes in it. Im afraid thats all they could do, pick holes in little things, but the good news is & they hated saying it, but it was a good copy! 😀 Ive got a good frame. Ive now had over 1200 miles of good fun riding, my WECC know its a fake, but also admire me & it from afar, if i say so myself, we done a cracking job building it up with good sensible choices of Sram Rival groupset, mavic Kyserium wheels & all the rest of the kit which makes the bike work.
I do not earn enough or ride quick enough to warrent or buy a “real” Pinarillo or any other top end frame. I bought it because i liked the look of it, im out to save the world, just out riding my very good looking, fun to ride, discussion starting “fake” Chin-Pinarillo….. 🙂russyparkin
all the blather seems to
all the blather seems to imply its the same geometry and tube shapes as a real one but with a slightly different carbon fibre.thing is you could pick up your 6k pinarello, ride 20 miles, bin it on something in the road and write it off. even with a crash replacement policy its still a massive write off. where as the chinarello you order another for £350.
took the same view with the glasses, dropped a set the other day but if it had been my real set i paid £180 for i would have been livid. fortunately i just picked em up thinking thank god they are replaceable.
russyparkin wrote:have to say
russyparkin wrote:have to say i have bought some oakley ‘replicas’ recently from china. had them checked by an optician and they are uv400 safe. radars with 5 lenses. i have traditionally been against such things and do own genuine oakley as well. but you cannot tell the difference, everything is the same except with 5 lenses they were 14.99!.
this is almost a bit of the industries fault. they went to china to get people to make products for a reason. the cheapest costs and highest margins.what it has done though has made some switched on chinese people realise that they can make money off the manufacturers greed. the de rosa r386 is a classic example. its the same frame as the ribble stealth yet if you bought the exact bike specs the de rosa is £1100 more. they have bought the frame off the shelf so to speak. so your paying £1000 for stickers and paint.
I’d be really interested in seeing how the Chinarello actually compares to a “real”, as in bought through ‘official’ channels, Pinarello frame. I wonder if its possible to have it professionally appraised? I’d love to know. It could be interesting to see if its a straight copy, an actual Pinarello frame produced ‘out of hours’ or just someone knocking together a look-a-like.
If nothing else Wheelz, your project has certainly been a great source of discussion.
have to say i have bought
have to say i have bought some oakley ‘replicas’ recently from china. had them checked by an optician and they are uv400 safe. radars with 5 lenses. i have traditionally been against such things and do own genuine oakley as well. but you cannot tell the difference, everything is the same except with 5 lenses they were 14.99!.
this is almost a bit of the industries fault. they went to china to get people to make products for a reason. the cheapest costs and highest margins.what it has done though has made some switched on chinese people realise that they can make money off the manufacturers greed. the de rosa r386 is a classic example. its the same frame as the ribble stealth yet if you bought the exact bike specs the de rosa is £1100 more. they have bought the frame off the shelf so to speak. so your paying £1000 for stickers and paint.
its a shame the way things have gone but sadly most bike manufacturers are not about bike passion they are about the best marketing team. there are some exceptions but there are some terrible offenders (especially the italian brands) they sell you spirit of italy but actually give you the back street of taiwan)
again i dont object to this as taiwan / china have made everything for years and are probably better than most western countries now
matt637
withnails wrote:Without
[quote=withnails]Without wishing to sound too puritanical or a killjoy, but it’s surprising that there’s not one comment above questionning whether it’s actually ethical to buy one of these rip-off frames?i did mention about trading standards being interested – they’d have to catch you first 😉
trikeman
I tend to agree.
Unless the
I tend to agree.Unless the customer (like Pina or Shimano) demands all the equipment is destroyed after the production run they have requested and signed contracts that they will not make any others, what’s stopping the manufacturer carrying on for a few more weeks using the same moulds/mandrels and designs to produce several hundred more? Worse still, sells the kit to someone who hasn’t a clue……
In comes Dai, the exporter, buys them and they disappear off the radar until they land in old Blighty, USA or Taiwan – the trail well documented – not.
Component parts are really starting to hit the shores, take a look at some of the FSA kit on the bay eg. OS-99 they are a fortune but can now be bought for £30. They are still marked up with the ‘titanium bolts and torques’ but they are chromed mild steel. Until the demand is removed – they will still supply.
We are probably a laughing stock in the far East where they are successfully capitalising on Western greed, fashion and want for name emblasoned products. Take a tee shirt, George at Asda, cotton plain blue £2.99 – with Bench on it another £20.00 or £30.00,,,, Not to mention the Armani’s. The East will churn these out all day long for a bigger margin and we all have to accept they are damned good at it, and/or very clever.Trikeman. 😉
notfastenough
trikeman wrote:
I am not 100%trikeman wrote:
I am not 100% all these frames come from the same factory, but whichever they come from has to have some tooling, experience and expensive equipment to build carbon frames, Dura-ace C35’s and Zipps. Companies like Nike have tried to stop this ‘copying’ but if there is the market for less expensive, the market will be supplied.
Trikeman. ;)Don’t know why, but the idea of rip-off components leaves me more surprised than rip-off frames. Dura-Ace C35s? That just makes me think it’s an ‘out-of-hours’ job on the same production line, or someone fiddling the numbers to siphon a few off the official shipping list.
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