Yan 

Funny how Chinese companies never get credit for their products, but as soon as a western brand is slapped on there it is suddenly "legit".

Highly unjust in my opinion. A good product is a good product. It shouldn't have to justify itself through some western association. This is just blatant racism. Not pointing fingers at you specifically, more at the general attitude.

Kapusta

Thats not racism. Thats an issue with a particular country and its business practices and business culture.

Whether or not it is justified is another story.

Yan 

I'm sorry but this is plain racism no matter how you try to pretend. I don't hear people applying the same criticism to Google and Facebook after they stole the short video format from Chinese company Tiktok.

This double standard is racism, plain and simple.

PDKL45

Microshift shifters were specced on Surlys for the longest time. Surly would never use trigger shifters on Pugsleys, Trolls and Ogres, etc., they'd spec Microshift thumb shifters.

Their bar end shifters were always on LHTs and CCs as well; it's how Surly could create some of those cool old touring drivetrains with like a Sora crankset and a deore rear derailleur.

Their big thing was those bar end shifters. They are compatible with Shimano, cheap and available, so back at the start of the gravel/adventure trend, you could use drop bars with MTB derailleurs; they opened up the possibilities of wacky, non-standard drivetrains.

They're a regular Taiwanese company, well known enough to have their mainland Chinese knock-off brand, micronew. Like Sunrace and Sunshine, etc. The mainlanders were huge on copying Taiwanese stuff, until they started to make their own, with experience. Enter ex-SRAM engineers and mainland capital and manufacturing capability and you have Sensah, increasingly regarded as being a decent budget alternative. Microshift isn't SRAM, but it's the Taiwanese industry; there are always going to be ex-employees moving around.

cxwrench

NO, it's not racism. You are confused about the meaning of the term.
unfair treatment of people of a particular race in a society especially to the benefit of people of another RACE

Race, not nationality.

Kapusta

You are confusing animosity towards a country with racism.

Yan 

American centric thinking being revealed. "American" is a nationality, not a race. "Chinese" is absolutely a race. Different country, different context. Are you also going to claim that "Indian" and "Thai" are nationalities and not races? Are Indians and Thais the same in your eyes? They are simply "brown" race to you?

"You can't steal from us, but when we steal from you it's fine."

That's absolutely taking advantage of another race for your own benefit. By your own definition.

base2 

And by that logic, Elon Musk is the richest African-American that ever lived.

Nations consist of a large & diverse group of people. It's the policies of the Chinese government & blatant disregard for patent's, intellectual property rights, outright theft of information & trade secrets, with no regard for the consequences that is specifically the issue.

There is nothing in the complaint concerning the race of "Chinese" unless it is you who are asserting that all Chinese people have a shifty-dishonest quality about them.

Don't like the market fall out of the Chinese governments policy? Work to change it.

PDKL45

Those aren't really "races" though. China is huge and comprises a large number of ethnic groups, Chinese is a nationality, rather than an ethnicity. Same goes with Thai and Indian citizens. Both countries have large numbers of ethnicities.

That said, I don't think it's racist to attach legitimacy to a product due to its being used on another company's product as an OEM component. Traditionally, it had to do with notions of quality control and speccing a part can be seen as an acknowledgement of the quality of the OEM part.

In this case I think it's misguided or misinformed, rather than racist. There are a large number of US companies popping up, selling Taiwanese/Mainland bikes at the sub-$1000 price point. The companies are based in the US, but all too often they lack quality control. Even Jeff Jones jumped in with that SWB complete, a complete with rims that crack at the drop of a hat as spokes pull through them. Components being specced on one of those bikes is no acknowledgement of quality, they just help to meet a selling price point is all.

Yan 

This is getting way off topic and inappropriate for this sub-forum, so I will not be continuing the discussion after this post. Lots of passionate responses. Clearly some combination of self-denial, self-shame, and self-defensiveness causing people to take this personally despite me saying this was not pointed any anyone in particular.

Yes, nations consist of a large & diverse group of people. But again, American centric thinking revealed. "American" is a nationality and not a race. "Chinese" is both a nationality AND a race. Different country, different context. There are only 1.4 million foreign born people living in China, less than 0.1% of the population. When you say "Chinese", you can be certain that the person you're referring to is an actual Chinese, not a White-African transplant. What you're doing here is a flat attempt at hiding racism via disingenuously separating "nationality" and "race", the same tactic people have been using against Jewish Israelis since the Holocaust. It is ironic that you're using Elon Musk being African to support your case, when Elon Musk is the direct legacy of Whites colonizing other races.

Let me give you some hints:

• If you're getting this personally defensive about being called a racist, you're probably a racist. (Especially when you're not even the person being addressed yet you feel compelled to chime in with your own screed list of racist stereotypes.)
• When you attempt to reflect criticism by mirroring the criticism away from yourself and back onto the other side, you're probably a racist. (Bolded text above, bolding yours not mine.)

Probably one of the most racist things you can possibly say. Try to practice some self-awareness, please. Let me guess, you hate Israelis too, right? But you love Jews. Of Course you do.

Yan 

And back on topic:

Microshift is a Taiwanese company. They are not related to SRAM. They are known for their bar end shifters which have wide compatibility with the major brands, most useful for allowing the use of mountain bike drivetrains with drop bars. For this reason their bar end shifters are extremely popular in the touring and adventure bike segments. For example you can get a Microshift bar end shifter that lets you use a SRAM 1x12 mountain drivetrain on a drop bar gravel bike.

Kapusta

“Double Standard” and “racism” do not mean the same thing.

A double standard can be indicative of many things, racism is just one.

Your insistence that there is no difference between the Chinese race and the Chinese government and business sector is bazaar.

By your logic, any criticism I make of China (or india, or Thailand) is racist.

Kapusta

I really think you have no idea what racism actually means.

is English your first language? because you clearly don’t seem to understand some of the nuances of it.

PDKL45

Chinese isn't an ethnicity. There are many different ethnic groups within China, you don't have to be born overseas to be ethnically different from other citizens in China.

It wasn't racist, the assertion stemmed from a misunderstanding, just like yours.

base2 

Lol

Words have definitions.

Clearly you are blinded by bias (thinking others are conflating one ethnic identity & the actions of a government) & numerous attempts have been made to clarify the nature of the grievance to you.

Further discussion is pointless.
The old adage: "You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves in to.

You think we think all Chinese are lumped together into one large amorphous monolithic group. That is flatly false. I'm not sure if I should be offended by your nonsense or you're just a racist to be ignored.

Yan 

Please don't lecture me about English as a second language when you misspelled bizarre as "bazaar" in your previous post above. Clearly a real misspelling and not a typo as the key strokes are not near each other.

Ad hominem attacks are immature and ineffective, only makes yourself look bad. It reeks of projection.

PDKL45

Remember the adage "never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence," basically "look for a cock up before a conspiracy?" The same goes for accusations of racism and doubling down by throwing them at anyone who questions the original accusation. It was a small misunderstanding of how modern companies work, that's about it. Maybe keep your powder dry until you encounter actual racism.

philbob57

I wouldn't say China is a great respecter of intellectual property, and I would agree that a lot of Chinese production goes into cheap, low quality knockoffs of high-cost, high quality goods, but 'much' is not 'all'. I don't know about Sensah, but I really wonder about the connection, if any, between Microshift and MicroNEW. If there is a connection or if M-shift licensed M-NEW, I might buy something from M-NEW. If M-NEW has ripped off M-shift's technology, which I suspect, I'll continue to stay away.

if you think China is a source of only low quality goods, check out Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China, and visit a museum with a significant Chinese collection.

Yan 

Not sure about Micro-new. Their stuff is sold under a lot of different brands, the same parts with different stickers slapped on; no different from the thousands of generic clothing vendors on Amazon all selling the same Vietnamese made clothes, including Amazon's own "Amazon Basics" brand.

But Micro-new's logo design is a clear rip off of Microshift's logo design. I had no idea Microshift was desirable enough to imitate. It's always been a low end name. Frankly at this component level brands are completely irrelevant. These are economy purchases. It just needs to function in the most basic way.

Kapusta

Who said I hate anyone?

YOU are the one conflating the Chinese “race” (which you brought up, not me) with the practices of the government and industry in China.

I would suggest that it is you who are doing damage to anti-racism efforts by trivializing it. Someone says something you disagreed with. Rather than disagreeing on merits, you question their motives and dismiss them as racist. Its lazy, and it does a great disservice to the cause of calling out racism when it is actually appropriate.

BTW, one is not anti-Semitic for criticizing something Israel does. Nor does it mean they hate Israelis.

icemilkcoffee 

Up until Yan brought up racism, this thread has been completely positive. Nobody had anything negative to say about Microshift or Sensah. There are, undoubtedly, lots of incidences of anti-Chinese racism in the post-Covid landscape, but I certainly didn't see it in this thread.
In fact, in recent years, chinese companies like Farsport, Winspace, 3iii, Sensah etc have all gained legitimacy and acceptance. Cyclists in general have proven to be more open-minded and accepting of chinese products than most other groups.

PDKL45

All really good points. I just bought a Darkrock steel touring frame from China to build up as a light tourer/bikepacker with a few component choices from Chinese sellers as well. I run an 8 speed generic Chinese cassette on my commuter that's been just fine for me, because it's steel and heavy, so really durable. I have a pair of shorts from Aliexpress that lasted much better than some from a much larger brand, while being worn just as much (the other pair I bought at the same time had a destroyed chamois within a ride or two, however). I'm fine with Chinese bike stuff.

Anyone else see YouTuber Francis Cade put Sensah Empire on his bike? Nothing but his honest opinion and that was fairly positive. Like you say, lots of acceptance and that's just growing with Microshift's Advent and Advent X, as well as the cool 8 speed groupset whose name escapes me. The recent shortage of bike components has only strengthened that acceptance IMO.

Throwing accusations of racism around has become really common in recent times, and it concerns me on a boy who cried wolf level. Racism is something that affects me on a personal level and I would hate for the world to become so desensitized to the idea of racial discrimination that calling actual racism out for what it is loses credibility due to repetition.

veganbikes

Please do not conflate Israel with the Jewish community at large. Yes there Jewish people who do support Israel but plenty who don't. People find the policies of the Israeli government to be abhorrent especially towards the Palestinian people. An imaginary line drawn in the ground with a government set up does not equal an entire race of people or in this case a religion and those who have come from that religion who may or may not practice it anymore.

Also it should be noted there are at least 56 different ethnic groups in China (at least 56 recognized by the Chinese Government) should we just lump everyone together. This is not unique we do it all over and it is very wrong.

One can hate the actions of a person or a government or organization without hating someone based on their race or some innate quality about them. I am not opposed to hate so long as we hate everyone equally without regard to how they were born. I cannot choose how I was born and the skin tones and body parts I have or don't have but I can choose who I am as a person and the actions I take.

mstateglfr 

- You missed the actual point of the Elon Musk comment. For those who tracked it, it was funny and on point. But yeah, if you miss the point, then something similar to your response is bound to be posted.

- I do love the irony of you telling others that there is some self-defensiveness and self-denial taking place in the thread and its caused some to take things personally. Oblivious.

- Your breakdown that people who get defensive when they are called racist over something that isn't racist, are therefore racist because they get defensive is too funny. Quite the self-fulfilling circle of logic right there.

- This thread was informative and neutral until you came in with a chip on your shoulder and popped off about some perceived injustice. It's devolved into junk since then. Way to go.

koala logs

In random group rides, I often hear mechanical problems with expensive American-branded carbon road bikes (Trek, Specialized, etc) <5 years old. Typically on the drivetrain including the BB. They wax their chains so I doubt they are clueless about bike maintenance. In their defense, the rural roads are terrible, really bad.

However my bike is all Chinese-made, except for the tires (Japan). No mechanical issues. In fact, I have one of the most silent running bike. It can be attributed to the all-aluminum build and wide 38mm gravel tires so perhaps my bike is not as badly shaken as the other guys who are running <28 mm wide tires on their expensive carbon bikes on bad rural roads.

In defense of dirt cheap Chinese products, they seem just as durable as 10x more expensive American brands. Obviously, the drivetrain doesn't shift as smoothly but gets the job done (the more expensive Chinese brand models might shift smoother and faster but never tried them yet). I've come across riders with their expensive bikes replace a major bearing a lot sooner when my dirt cheap sealed Chinese bearings are still smooth as silk, no play, no binding.

As long they last as long as American counterparts, I really don't feel I'm being cheated. In fact, I'm actually saving money because they're cheaper. What I've been told that buying expensive bike or parts is good economy is a complete baloney especially for a rider like who doesn't ride in a stupid way.

Unless you actually race and make money in winnings or sponsorship, then I think that's only way you can save money by buying the most expensive bike you can afford.