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British brands are Chinese carbon clones?

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  • January 20, 2013 at 9:33 pm #17725
    Leviathan

    This is a synthesis of a few threads I have seen on road.cc in the last year. I read that the New Starley bike and PlanetX are actually using standard Chinese frames and wheels that are imported and branded and obviously marked up in price. I don’t know if this is true but a poster here said it is widely know. I posted on a thread about new Zipp wheels retailing at about £1700 and said I had seen similar PlanetX wheels for £400 which I fancied; someone replied saying that you would ‘feel’ the difference between the two. Finally there was a long running thread about someone’s ‘Chinarello’ that they had built from clone parts from a website discussing the bike’s performance and cost.

    So what I am asking is this; obviously Chinese parts aren’t just made out of balsa wood and these British brands are sticking their names on them, but are they a reasonable investment? Are they 80/90% the quality of some big name US/Italian labels at half the price (which would be worth it) or do the prices genuinely reflect the difference in quality? Should I just buy what I can afford now and have a dream Italian bike in my mind for the future or wait?

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Viewing 11 replies - 16 through 26 (of 26 total)
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  • January 21, 2013 at 4:01 pm #712327
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    Fringe

    You may also get stung by
    You may also get stung by import duty/tax. Friend of mine bought some carbon wheels very similar to the £400 Planet X versions and about £30 cheaper by the time he’d paid the uk import duty..

    Anyhow you should really support yer old fashioned local bike shoppe, otherwise the high street will end up full of nail bars, hairdressers and chazzers 😀

    January 21, 2013 at 3:49 pm #712325
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    Simon E

    Planet-X have been badging up
    Planet-X have been badging up generic/open-mould stuff for ages as well as buying exclusivity in some cases, and as you can see they aren’t the only ones. That doesn’t make it bad. Merida and Trigon make frames for big names but decided to sell under their own name.

    Should I just buy what I can afford now and have a dream Italian bike in my mind for the future or wait?

    You have to decide for yourself, I’m afraid. Will having that Italian marque on your downtube make a difference to you? If so, then you’ll have to start saving. Or why not go secondhand?

    January 21, 2013 at 1:34 pm #712323
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    dave atkinson

    notfastenough wrote:So when

    notfastenough wrote:
    So when Starley cycles were mentioned as using an open mould (which I believe is similar to the idea to open-source software), that doesn’t mean it isn’t top quality.

    precisely so. open mould means that you’re offsetting the cost of the mould manufacture, which runs into tens of thousands of pounds, and instead paying a usage fee which is a lot less. there’s still a lot to do. what carbon to use, how to lay it up, how to finish it… all of those can greatly affect the finished frame. there’s CEN testing to be done too.

    road.cc runs from open-source software. but we like to think it’s not just the same as any other open-source site 🙂

    January 21, 2013 at 1:23 pm #712321
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    notfastenough

    I think there’s a distinct
    I think there’s a distinct difference between two aspects of this:

    Firm based in UK/USA?wherever, designs items, then has them manufactured in China or somewhere. Not a huge amount wrong with that really – sure, it would be good for the local economy to keep the manufacturing here, but no-one is going to pay enough for the item to cover UK wages etc. It’s still made to the design specification, so the quality isn’t (or shouldn’t be) an issue. See Spin cycles as an example, they even have their own titanium craftspeople in their own factory, in China.

    There is also the legit Chinese company, doing their own thing in the same way as any other company. Unfortunately, I can’t honestly name any due to the market mostly consisting of the above, or sadly, the below.

    Then there is kit that originates in China completely but with questionable origins. This may or may not be branded, and may or may not be a copy of something else. If it’s branded, is it a copy, or is it simply an out-of-hours/unofficial run of the genuine product, or even a home-brew run using moulds bought from the factory to produce replicas of last year’s official product? If the company that did all the R&D etc isn’t seeing any reward, they might just not do that R&D in the future. This is where it just gets too murky and results in the ‘legit’ Chinese manufacturing operations being tarred with the same brush as the dodgy ones.

    The other thing that gets me is all the talk of “it’s made in the same factory so there’s no difference.” What a load of bull. Just looking at frames (and I’m no expert), the types/grades of carbon, layup direction, number of layers, where it’s used, techniques, monocoques, lugs, geometry, temperatures, QA, testing, acceptable tolerances etc etc are all variables that could make a WORLD of difference between an entry-level and a high-end frame made in the same plant.

    So when Starley cycles were mentioned as using an open mould (which I believe is similar to the idea to open-source software), that doesn’t mean it isn’t top quality. There are known to be some very good open moulds out there, but what gets put in them might vary hugely. Regarding Starley specifically, the jury is still out for me until I find out more about them. They *might* be ace.

    January 21, 2013 at 12:56 pm #712319
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    dave atkinson

    a couple of things to
    a couple of things to mention:

    1) because two bike frames *look* the same it doesn’t mean they *are* the same. There’s lots of open mould frames out there, but using the mould and filling it with Toray T700 carbon will give you a very different bike than you’d get if you used basic, high-resin-content matting. That’s not to say that all Chinese/Taiwainese frames you can buy direct are low-grade, because they’re not. But make sure you know.

    2) if you buy from a UK distributor or brand you’ll pay more than if you go direct but you’ll invariably get a warranty and it’ll be backed up by UK trading law. Plus, you’ll have a point of contact if something goes wrong. Those things are both worth something; you have to decide what they’re worth to you.

    January 21, 2013 at 12:54 pm #712317
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    Paul J

    I have a set of chinese
    I have a set of chinese carbon wheels, cost me about £400. Done 2700 km odd on them so far, and no problems to date. Quite pleased with them.

    January 21, 2013 at 12:33 pm #712315
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    Leviathan

    Hmm… so just go for a bit
    Hmm… so just go for a bit more performance now, i.e. any aero wheel is going to be an upgrade over my big standard wheels, and leave the top of the range stuff for the future. Trust in British stickers I guess.

    January 21, 2013 at 9:57 am #712313
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    nostromo

    £15 for a pair of Choakley
    £15 for a pair of Choakley Jawbones delivered. Great looking sunnies, 3 different lenses, cloths and carry case. I bought them for info as much as anything, reasoning that the price paid was something I could afford to lose. But they arrived as promised and in comparison with a mate’s ‘real’ Oakleys there seems to be no discernable trade-off in performance.

    Same mate is a salesman for an eyewear company and states matter-of-factly that brands like Oakley are paying pence for each frame unit.

    I’m a bit conflicted about this because I appreciate the value of brands and their quality control and service etc. But I break/lose/damage sunglasses for fun so I’m fed up paying hugely inflated sums for them.

    January 20, 2013 at 10:23 pm #712311
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    thereandbackagain

    Was it ever thus.
    I remember
    Was it ever thus.

    I remember that my Orange P7 bought in the early nineties was designed in the UK, made in South Korea. Orange were clear about why; Korean’s did the best job at the time, because they had massive steel expertise from ship building.

    I like buying from the UK when I can. Shutt VR, Carradice etc, but frankly there are times when an import is going to be as good, if not better, than UK makers, for the same price or less.

    January 20, 2013 at 10:09 pm #712309
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    Gkam84

    Its not just bikes.
    I know
    Its not just bikes.

    I know this is not about carbon frames. But I just looked at the washing instructions on my new Endura jacket…..Born In Scotland is their slogan…

    Made In China X(

    January 20, 2013 at 9:54 pm #712307
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    thereandbackagain

    It’s a really complicated
    It’s a really complicated area. Lots of brands design in their native country, then get the manufacturing done in China, as you’re no doubt aware. Picking parts out of a catalogue is going to happen, but then that’s always going to be the case.

    It happens with components (Tektro brakes are often relabelled as “bike brand X” specific, for example), so no doubt it happens with frames too.

    Now, there’s obviously a lot of very high quality stuff coming out of China, but no doubt there’s substandard stuff too, so you have to ask, what are you paying for here?

    There’s going to be an element of cost associated with the brand, but there’s more to it than the label. Go to a reputable manufacturer and you’re getting the backup of a decent warranty, and also they have their good name to preserve in the event of any issues. They should also have QA people on the ground checking the manufacturing, reducing the likelihood of an issue in the first place.

    Does the difference in cost reflect the difference in quality? If you’re just looking at the item, maybe not. If you’re factoring in everything else that wraps around it, maybe it does.

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