Has anybody tried buying cycling parts (esp carbon stems and bars) from wish.com? They sell factory direct from China, so prices are crazy low. For example, you can buy Ritchey carbon drop bars for $40 . Shipping times are long, but I wondered if anyone has tried it?

Dave

Ritchey Carbon Bars? Probably knock off bars with Ritchey logos made in an unknown factory. I wouldn't buy unknown carbon for cheap. Just because people do it and are lucky doesn't mean anyone should join them. I know people love to think that there is a magical third shift making these bars and selling them out of the back of the factory to Mr. Ali Baba and they are the exact same as the stuff with logos but in reality much of that stuff is made in unknown factories with unknown safety and labor practices and a lot of it doesn't go through the rigorous testing that say Ritchey puts through all of their parts before selling them.

"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten." - Ben Franklin

Yeah, I figured they wouldn't be as good. Was definitely questioning the quality. Riding those bars would make me uneasy. Would worry about them breaking mid ride.

Dave

People are free to do whatever they want but using counterfeit products is stealing from the company which makes the actual product. That's the bottom line for me.

Counterfeiting is controlled by organized crime which is pretty much institutionalized in China. The people who make this stuff aren't nice guys. I prefer not to have anything to do with it. Buying legit products is a small price for a clean conscience.


-Tim-

Calling it "stealing" is oversimplifying. That assumes that, if the person hadn't found the knockoff for $40, they would have bought the real thing at retail instead. That's hardly ever the case.

Lawyers tried to make the same argument 20 years ago, as if every 12 year-old kid who discovered Napster was just about to drop $15 for the new Metallica CD, but downloaded it for free instead. Neither do knockoff purses sold at flea markets represent a huge loss of sales for Louis Vuitton.

I won't argue with that, though. I don't buy knockoffs either, for a bunch of reasons.

That is a good thing to worry about. I wouldn't trust a bar like that no matter what the price. I tend to find hospital bills to be way more expensive then even a $500 Schmolke bar. I want to be able to tell people my bike has the real deal, Shimano not Shamino.

So the Metallica CD and the Metallica download is the same music. It is not like Napster was redoing the Metallica songs with a different band, they were the same thing just for free on the interwebs. Though Motellica or Matallica or the Larz Ulricks Experience would be fun.

This product is an actual fake product being sold as the real thing not the real thing just not really being sold.

No to take this off track, but I still agree with what Lars Ulrich was fighting back then. He could foresee the damage something like a Napster would do to the music industry, and he was pretty spot on in my opinion. That's why the top streamed songs have millions if not billions of plays, and only make a couple grand off their songs. The music industry did adapt and a most of the money is now made off touring and merchandise, not record sales. There is light at the end of the tunnel though! Vinyl and record sales are slowly climbing again! There seems to be some sort of stigma towards success and wealth. Especially in rock and roll. For some reason it's looked down upon to be really good at what you do and make a lot of money doing it. This has never made sense to me. I hate to say it but its usually the people who aren't willing to work hard enough to be successful who are doing the complaining and looking for a hand out. If I work hard and make a dollar, doesn't mean I should share it with the next feller who didn't do anything for that buck. That's socialism, and no thanks! Okay rant over... but this idea helps support why I wont buy knock off product. I'd rather support the folks working hard to make a quality product, than the others lookin for the easy route with whatever crap they can sling.

Ehhh, I don't want to argue about Napster because music is still alive and well. It will always be that way. Music is very different than bike parts.

I can agree with that. I wasn't trying to compare apples to oranges necessarily.

No, but that's why I also threw in the knockoff purse example. In no case is the original creator (Ritchey, Metallica, Louis Vuitton) losing money or products by the sale of knockoffs or the free download of music, so the term "steal" is inaccurate. I just think we need a different word for it, is all.

Copying isn't theft. It's copying.

Copying doesn't deprive the owner of the rights of ownership, he still has his copy safely in a vault and can do whatever he wants with it. He can set it on fire if he wants to, & that's fine.

All work is derivative.

To wit, to show the absurdity of the music industry argument: My claim is I invented the "stick figure." Now I want a royalty check from any human on Earth that drew a stick figure. You are depriving of my right to a life of luxury because I arranged a circle, 4 lines representing arms & legs and a single vertical line for a body. I am a better & original artist, therefore I am excused from a 40 hour/week job. I am an artist. I drew it. You & you're 4 year old stole it.

Music is 12 notes. Circles & lines on paper. What the music industry wants is to monetize a product they release to the public, essentially to sell the same product over & over that isn't even theirs anymore. That doesn't work with groceries, gasoline, bicycles, or any other product produced by man. Why should it for skimming profit off of cultural, societal interactions?

To make duplicating a product I bought illegal, deprives me of MY rights of ownership. I could duplicate my kitchen table if I want to. I could also make changes as I see fit. I don't think many carpenters would deny my right to do so. Why music?

That being said, at least handle bars are a real, physical, real world product. The bars themselves exist. The name on the bars is a gross misrepresentation & ought to be not sold as a point of dis-honesty.

This is where I wish I could say the music industry got what it deserved, but that would be pretending there aren't cartels working hard to lock down live venues, ticket sales, and radio stations. It's still tough for musicians, and the industry keeps feeding off them like leeches. Some things never change.

Anyway! I'm sorry I took this on such a tangent. I'll go post some videos in the music thread that we can listen to free of charge and feel bad about.

You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel if you're browsing or shopping at wish.com.
That website is pretty much an internet meme of getting what you paid for and stark contrasts between expectations (what wish.com shows you're buying) vs reality (what you actually receive).
Don't go in there expecting quality since everything comes direct from China. Quality is definitely something you want for a set of handlebars.