Carbon fork off-brands
 

I'm planning on building a bike from the frame up and I have noticed a lot of inexpensive carbon forks on the Bay with names such as Toseek and Hylix that I never heard of that appear to by made in China or Taiwan. I'm assuming here that they are perfectly fine as far as safety is concerned but maybe heavier and less "engineered" compared name-brands like Ritchey and perhaps Cannondale.

Anybody here have any experience with these forks? I'm more concerned with fitting of parts such as disc brake calipers and overall quality but I don't expect perfection at these price points.

Your assumption of safety is misguided, especially as you are in the USA and serious injury or death due to failed equipment is almost never investigated unless it affects multiple litigious individuals.

That is probably a good assumption but you might want to do a risk vs consequences analysis. Yes the risk of failure is very small but the possible consequences could be life-long. I used your reasoning decades ago and lost. $100 (in 1973, what, $500 now? for a better fork would have saved me thousands of dollars, years and my profession.

I'm sorry if you choose to go ahead and buy that fork, then cannot enjoy it because I've planted this seed. I"m not sorry if this seed means you spend another $100 of hard won money and upgrade.

Ben

Sometimes stuff costs more for a reason; sometimes the reason is to separate you from more of your money because of a "brand name". Finding out which is which can be a joy or a tragedy. There have been times when I paid more for certain products but not because I knew they were better. I did it because the larger, more recognizable company with a presence in the USA had more to lose than a company based solely in another country where product liability isn't a factor.

If the object is to save money...
 

...try the" buy a whole bike" strategy.

You might find a useable, name brand fork, some rain-bike/training wheels, and some parts you can sell for cash.
Oh, and then sell the frame.

Without knowing what your expectation out of a fork, it's difficult to determine whether one carbon fork would be suitable over any other.

Are you a heavyweight rider?

Do you ride mostly on smooth pavement?

Do you plan on participating in cycling races?

Do you plan to ride on gravel or even off-road with drop-offs?

Cheap carbon forks are ok for most non-aggressive, neighborhood, group type riding..
but once the pace of the ride increase and the risk of failure increase on any fork.
Determine how much risk you plan to take on your fork and purchase your next fork accordingly.

I barely trust my OE specialized fork when approaching 50mph. If anything on my bike fails at that speed, I’d pretty much be lucky to die. More realistically I’d end up as a red pulp and suffer permanent consequences.

If you live in a flat area, sure, there isn’t too much risk involved. But if you plan to bomb any descents, I would do everything in my power to ease my anxiety.

What bike are you building up? Disc brake or rim?
https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/...saAsSpEALw_wcB

Here’s an absolutely beautiful fork from 3T. $200. 350g, tons of tire clearance and it’s even aero. Not $50 like a China fork but very reasonable imo if your bike can fit this.

I know Nashbar used to sell its own CF fork ... haven't checked if it still does ... but I am sure they bought their forks from whatever Chinese factory promised to meet their specs, price, and delivery date requirements, and changed manufacturers with each batch, just as the did with all their other products. And Nashbar, being US-based, had much more legal exposure if it dsold generally faulty products.

Hylix and Toseek have been making CF parts for a long time. I cannot speak to their QC, or their general quality ... except for the many seat posts, stems, and handlebars i have bought from them, none of which have failed. Their forks> Who knows?

I assume that CF, being a mature technology, and fork design and production, being pretty basic, is well within the capacity of a lot of small factories. These people aren't trying to do high-tech or super-weight-weenie---they are just producing basic CF bike parts.

On another hand, this site is rife with people still talking about "asplosion" of CF bikes .... even after riding on CF forks for twenty or thirty years, there were a lot of posters claiming CF frames were deadly. Now that CF frames are ubiquitous, they turn on Chinese CF .... but the actual verifiable reports of actual part - or frame failure are few ... and given the size of the industry, one would expect some failures. But still, few and far between.

Does that mean the forks you are considering are safe? No one knows. You could get a bad fork from Any manufacturer. The chances might be greater from some lesser-known Chinese manufacturer .... or you could be buying a fork made in the same factory on the same line by the same workers with the same materials as the more expensive name-brand fork you are considering.

No one can decide for you.

@Maelochs - haven't seen you around in a while, welcome back, hope all is well.

Yeah ... i got suspended for a while because Someone--not mentioning anyone named Maelochs---got fed up with trolls who skirted the posting rules while being consistently negative and demeaning.

I realized I was taking all this way too seriously. The trolls can feed themselves, and I hopefully can drop in from time to time and see what's up.

Slowed down in my riding too, due to severe job trauma and general malaise and a little ill health. Trying to get everything back on track, and eventually better than before--if only because I don't spend all my time feeding trolls. :D

Thanks for noticing.

I wouldn't buy a fork from Toseek. I have three of their bars, but IMO you can test a bar pretty well but not a fork (a bar is built lightly enough that you should be able to break it by hand if it's faulty).

What I found testing those bars is that I heard fibres break, meaning they hadn't been tested by the factory; I was the first one to put any load on them. Maybe they have better QC for forks, but I'd have thought bars were pretty critical too... Also the wall thickness was all over the place, at least at the end of the drops.

And given that Leuscher Technik has vids showing voids in the steerers of name brand forks... yeah nah.