No name carbon frames?
 

I have been looking around and found some nice looking no name frames on eBay.

Does anyone have experience with any of the online/eBay no name carbon frames?

Here are a few.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-Black-...item5198f313e8

http://cgi.ebay.com/CARBON-FRAMESET-...item2310414b7d

http://cgi.ebay.com/100-CARBON-FIBER...item45f9e715c8

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Road-Bike-Fr...item2ea9042fc7

http://cgi.ebay.com/Full-Carbon-Fibe...item2c5c446697


Thanks

Their are quite a few threads on this over at roadbikereview.com

I think the general consensus is that they're safe due to the quality of being overbuilt. However, overbuilt also means they weigh more than most branded CF frames.

I'd totally buy it.

I'm in the BF minority camp that is pretty sure that most companies CF frames are being churned out of the same factory in Taiwan, and that the only true "research" the company in question does is to research how to better "brand", market, and label the frames.

Sure, you don't get a warranty...but at that price, who cares? And given some of the grief some BFers have been through to get warranties honored, I don't think it's really that important anyway. And, for reasons already mentioned, I think the frame failure rate will be roughly identical to the failure rates of almost every other bike company's frames.

Well, other than the 1.04 kg in a 51CM, every frame he linked was in the 1.25 - 1.55 kg range. That's about 35% more than a lot of other "big name" CF frames.

I buy into the premise that you're not just buying a frame, but a contract with the bike manufacturer. So while its cheaper to buy a no-name, you're not getting customer service, feedback and someone there if stuff goes south.

I like the third one. A teammate of mine has one similar to the second link and it is very nice.

The fork with that "Bottechia" frame is the Cannondale "Ultra" fork. Trust me.

The last one is fugly in so many ways beyond just the color.

Buying a name brand is no guaranty that they will honor the warranty if something breaks.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...1#post12563558

Looks like the forks are quite heavy: 588 g. That is an easy place to drop weight on these frame/fork combos. yes?

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/sho...d.php?t=241785

Plenty of opinions and ideas for paint/decals. They'll do it for you. GL

I like mine. Size 58 frame was 1200 grams and the fork was 380 uncut. Its 15.8 lbs with dura-ace and a 1350 gram wheelset. I've been riding it for a year now and probably have about 6000 miles on it with no problems.
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i182/ditrydan/me.jpg

This is so incorrect I don't even know where to start.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!





How can you tell? Super fricken' super Magic X-Ray vision? Really?

Just because it has many of the same cosmetic features you think it is EXACTLY the same product?

Have you never seen a fake Chinese handbag?!? They look almost the same in the shop but fall apart six weeks later. Guess why? Because they are made with inferior materials and produced to a much lower quality standard.



I am in the middle of doing some destructive testing on frames with an assembly factory and I beg them daily to let me publish the data. It's like a fricken ritual. I beg; They decline.

Even frames that supposedly have passed the European safety standards fail way before they are supposed to. Again and again and again. there is one frame I'd love to sell (looks really cool) that we just can't get to pass the standards. We've trashed 6 frames now and the factory has given up. This frame is now dead to me.

So go ahead and roll the dice. I mean everyone knows that Chinese factories are associated with high quality goods that come with a comprehensive warranty.

You can start by demonstrating a SUBSTANTIVE difference, one that goes beyond marketing copy. Sure, products are not exactly identical, but what most of these companies who make really expensive bicycles do is create a collabo with the same Taiwanese factories as everyone else. And the same pool of talent that created the frame can make frames that are remarkably similar just down the street, or across the strait.

What the high-end cycling company does is "engineer" branding that is more laterally obvious and vertically apparent. These innovations go beyond the frame itself - they are an integral part of the website copy, helping to achieve a complete psycho-somatic effect on the end user for a truly great cycling experience, pushing the rider's limits beyond what an unbranded frame could ever achieve.

Let's just say that for the differences, those no-name frames are similar enough, and won't cost anyone the race.

By the way, this isn't an "outsourcing" rant about Asian produced frames. My point here is that really nice frames are manufactured overseas - some just cost more because of the extra marketing involved used to "manufacture" a profit margin for traditional bicycle companies. And some don't have the marketing and the margin.

I hear the same thing time and time again from those who: Just. Don't. Get. It.

You don't understand manufacturing or the facts on the ground. There are more than a few factories involved....:rolleyes:

Just because it is made by the same people in the same factory (they ARE NOT) doesn't mean they use the same materials and manufacture to the same standards. How hard is this to grasp?

I will leave you with one fact; Chinese factories have an annual employee turnover above 50%.

Draw your own conclusions.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Quite true. When the same motivation is provided, Western 'supervision' is not required to ensure quality of manufacture in Asia anymore. That motivation runs from financial reward, to ownership of process and ultimately the brand.

Then again maybe some of us do.

Not hard to grasp at all. The difference could lie in tasking a Chinese or Taiwanese or Korean EMPLOYEE of your company, a qualified engineer, with ensuring that quality standards are met versus the short sighted pure profit oriented dumping of manufacturing on a contractor who owns a shack with a lathe machine and making site visits for 'quality checks' in June. We've tried putting the squeeze on US auto suppliers for years remember?...they're thriving...NOT.

Which is why Cervelo insists on hand building every carbon frame in Canada correct? On a more serious note, there are employee retention issues in every company. In the US you can't easily walk and find a job today as you can in the far east manufacturing space or Indian software industry for example. One cannot conclude from this that Americans are thrilled with their lot in the workplace.

On cost and quality of overseas manufacture? Sure completed this exercise between 20-10yrs ago in Asia and S.America i.e. when the motivation provided is comparable, quality work whether manufacturing widgets or developing software, can be produced by any group of individuals (or larger company) regardless of geographical location, race, language, gender.

When people want something to be true, they become immune to facts.

When Americans moved off the farm, we became ignorant of how our food is produced. Now that we've moved out of the factories, we've become ignorant of what goes in to our manufactured goods.

Check out the Pedal Force frames. I did a QS3 last year and really like it. 56 w/ fork was about 1000 grams, if I remember right.

Without a fork... maybe. WITH a fork - no friggin' way.

Most of these so called generic frames are made by reputable manufacturers mainly in China and Taiwan. I recently bought a Pedal Force RS2 frame which was made by a high quality manufacturer who also makes frames for the biggest names in the buisness.
Same with my Tomasso Aggriazato. There really is no way cheap CF frame due to the limited # of manufacturers.

Buy the generic Dogma and call it a day :)


to me it sounds like the people who buy expensive "branded" frames need to justify why they paid 3k for a frame that you can get for 700 unbranded. ****, i love logos and paint just as much as the next guy but let's be real none of us will be running these frames in the tour and i highly doubt and unbranded frame will make or break your next race. if you have the money to spend on graphics, brand, marketing and maybe a bit more performance....maybe...then go for it. if not, an unbranded frame will suit just fine from what i have gathered. to each his own.

yeah, grab the dogma, get the paint and graphic workup, and let us know how it looks/rides!!

Instead of replying to each post I'll just do one post (sorry if I miss a few points).

Here's what I see in the course of running my business - one which deals with this very issue.

1. There are more carbon vendors (who also have vendors) than most people realize. Even if there were only a few these are not cookie cutter products we are talking about. There is a considerable amount of room for variation in materials and construction that is INVISIBLE to the NAKED EYE. You can't tell until it breaks or you take a hack saw to it.

2. There are some VERY good Chinese carbon vendors.

3. There are some VERY unscrupulous Chinese carbon vendors.

4. There is a certain amount of training that is required to produce carbon products. This is a hands-on process so it is more important than a machine function because there is no way to go backwards and see if it was done right. QC of carbon is difficult and expensive. QC on other things like machined parts is mostly much easier and cheaper.

5. The failure rate of products coming from Mainland Chinese factories is MUCH higher (across ANY INDUSTRY) than from other sources. The guys I drink beer with have their own trading companies in other industries and I hear this from them all the time. There is consesus.

6. If you want 100,000 pieces of something and you wanted it produced cheaply then do it in China. If you want 1000 pieces of something produced cheaply AND you want flexibilty and responsiveness from the vendor do it somewhere else. This is not China's strength.

7. I had a personal conversation with a carbon vendor (their company is known on this board and others) who told me that they are moving their entire rim production facility back from China to Taiwan because of the some of the things I've mentioned already. He said they can't get their rim/wheel program up and running (and they OWN the factory in China) because they can't get rims that are consistent enough. This is obviously a significant expense for them so it is a pretty serious problem.

8. Warranties. Warranties. Warranties. Roll the dice.

9. For those who believe that high end frames are the same thing but with nicer paint and that the premium isn't justified I say yes and no. It is certainly true that adding a brand to a frame does add to the price tag but adds no additional value but those frames are NOT the same ones being dumped on eBay. Those premium frames ARE BETTER to begin with and are more expensive to produce. The added cost is in materials and other fixed costs like R&D, proper destructive testing and marketting. They start out as being more expensive right out of the factory and this is magnified as they pass through the process to the consumer. Add a fancy brand and that tacks a few more dollars on top of that which I would agree is pure hype.

10. I am working with a new factory lately on some other projects (and maybe something exciting for my company in 2012!!!!!!) and they have a carbon frame that they can't get to pass the European standards. This frame has European approval (something passed) but the production versions aren't stacking up. They've tested several of these frames now and although they look great, they've pretty much given up and using this frame at all.

I WISH I could post video and hard data to illustrate what I am talking about but it is not my data to show or to talk about in any meaninful way. I DO have something slated for 2012 that will be my data and I am now trying to come up with a way to also do HD video of the testing (moment of failure) but I need help with this and I haven't found the right people yet.

Last point (full disclosure):

I do work in the industry but I don't sell carbon frames consumer direct in any meaningful way. I have no dog in this fight. I do source carbon frames and other parts for my customers who sell to concumers and ALL of those carbon parts come from Taiwan.

The reason I even participate in these threads is two-fold. First, I have been a member of this community for a while and I do try to be helpful when I can. I offer information/ advice or support as applicable. In short it just bugs me to see one of us potentially getting hosed. I'm just like that.

Second I have been watching an alarming trend with Chinese factories dumping on eBay or spamming boards like this one. Believe me, if this takes hold these boards will become so inundated with spam posts that they will become almost unusable. I feel that this is a legitimate comcern.

Also, these factories are really messing with the industry in terms of setting false pricing in the market place. This is where I am directly affected and do have a motive for posting in these threads (this is the disclosure part). When I see parts being sold consumer direct 1 piece at a time for LESS than I can order a 'comparable' product and I need to order 50 pieces something is just not right. I can't offer PROOF that these much less expensive items are inferior but I can do math.

The problem I have with this is once these prices take hold in the maketplace I then have to convince my customer why the products I sell are more expensive. In their minds I am now somehow a shaddy guy when in fact I am trying to offer relaible products from sources I know and trust who will back up their products. Yup, I guess that makes me the bad man.

If you've actually read this far I'm pretty surprised.

In the interest of not sounded like a dick any more than I occasionally do I am going to try to refrain from posting any more things on this matter. I've pretty much said all I have to say about cheap Chinese carbon so there really isn't any reason to go on about it any further.

/END LECTURE.

Thanks Bob. It's nice seeing the grownups post now and then.

^^ To add to this, I spend a lot of time in factories in Asia and have for the last almost 20 years. Where a lot of this "unbranded" stuff comes from is the reject bin in the factory. The stuff gets moved out the back door to some uncle/friend/nephew etc... who then moves it either in a tiny street front store and/or on eBay.

The other big problem like this with stuff out of Asia is that the knockoff guys (better ones) pay a LOT of attention to the finish and then seriously cut corners underneath. For example, you could find a beautifully finished frame and then find out that the amount of carbon fiber is about half what it's supposed to be and they used cheaper epoxy instead. In point of fact, this is exactly what happened in the carbon fiber photographic tripod business as well as major production shortcuts.

So, its a crap shoot and when safety is involved, I'd give it a pass for sure. I used to be just fascinated by the "deals" until I figured out what was going on. Now I'm hugely skeptical. I've been screwed on this sort of thing much more often than I have gotten a "deal."

J.

Thanks everyone for shedding some light on these so called deals..