Thanks for pointing this out. American style "Quality Control" involves catching poorly made products before too many get shipped, then fixing the production problem. Japan's "Just do it right" philosophy is obviously worlds better.

This is where the Chinese companies do seem to have it right. They are selling frames which seem to work. If they were badly made, you'd think we'd hear about it. Maybe they don't pay as many people to do after-production inspection, but that doesn't mean the frames aren't built well.

Also, a lot of their reduced cost isn't due to cheap labor or shoddy production techniques (after all they are probably using the same labor and tools as the big names.) The Chinese companies don't have to pay marketers, designers, and an army of lawyers. They pay some college students to reverse-engineer a few frames, buy a few last-year's model molds, and sell mainly via low-cost (Internet, word-of-mouth) methods. I don't recall ever seeing a Dengfu ad in a cycling magazine.

To each his own. As I see it, the main thing I get by buying the latest Giant or Trek is ...the latest. it will probably be a generation newer and somewhat lighter and stronger than the Chinese frames ... until about 18 months from now when the Chinese factories will start producing that model too.

I have to imagine that if there were hundreds of these Chinese frames failing, we'd s see thousands of posts on all the various bike fora. I have never seen one (that I find reliable.)

I see no reason to think the frame I could buy from Dengfu would be any less safe than the one I would buy from Nashbar or BikesDirect.