Originally Posted by
Hill160881
I want to apologize for how I did this. It was perhaps bad form but I do get really sick of the hate towards cheaper products with the claim you get what you pay for.
I have paid for both high end and the cheapest crap on alliexpress and gotten as much crap from name brands as from the cheap china products. This is why I hate carbon fiber in the bike industry. Zero standards between producers and no international standards like with metals.
The international bike industry seems gigantic to me, but maybe the amount of carbon used falls between the cracks compared to the major consumers of carbon fiber, explaining the lack of oversight.
Sounds a bit as though carbon fiber for bikes is still in the Wild West stage of development. Reminds me of what is probably my all-time favorite quote on the topic, posted on a long-gone bike chat site around 1997, by an industry veteran (who calls himself "bulgie" on Bike Forums).
In reference to the standard of engineering of racing bike technology in the Golden Era of the '70's and '80's, he wrote something like "They reduced the weight of components until the death toll became prohibitive, and then added a little material back."