Hello Fellow Chinertowners:
I find this site incredibly helpful, and am very grateful to the person who spent the time to create this site.
That said, I’m going to tell you my Chiner story, It’s long and boring, but hopefully it will be my way of giving back, so others can learn from my experience.
I own a Cannondale 2015 Scalpel team. This is another story, but to make a long story longer… it started out as a 2012 Scalpel Carbon 1. Over the years, everything was upgraded except Hollowgram Cranks and the rear shock. When I cracked my frame in 2016, they gave me a new 2015 Team frame. I didn’t like the green, so I had it plasti-dipped black. When they gave it back painted, they informed me it was a small. I’m 5’9”, I was really happy with my bike until they told me, and it was too late to return. No wonder the bike was always so” twitchy”. I did manage to get third in State in my class, and 1st in the region. (just to give me some credibility...brag)
So, I was in the market for a new “medium” sized bike. 2015 Frames on eBay were about $1600 and had the old geometry. Cannondale changed the geometry in 2017 by slackening the fork and shortening the chainstays. So I did some research for a cheap Chinese bike frame with the new geometry, and happened to stumble upon a post on MTBR about Deng-Fu, and how nice they were.
So I goggled Deng-Fu and found their Alibaba site (and found this site after I placed my order). I contacted them, and their sales person “Kelsey” was a very professional sales rep, and returned all correspondence promptly. She walked me through the process and updated my Alibaba order to reflect the logo painting, headset bearings, thru-axle, stem and extra derailleur hangers. They kept their 15 day schedule for custom paint, and shipping through EMS took only a little more than a week (I was expecting a month).
I ordered a “Lefty for All” conversion kit, xx1 GXP crankset, Monarch XX rear shock, BB92-GXP sram bearings, RWC 21.85 Shock bearings, and stem spacers ahead of time. So I had everything I needed to assemble.
The frame looked great, except since I kept it flat black; you could very slightly tell where they had to sand the imperfections from the mold. Also there wasn’t enough room for the rear brake (SRAM Guide Ultimates ) so I had to make a spacer to crazy glue to the frame to allow adjustment room. Also you have to grind the Shock Pivot Bolts so they will fit tight, otherwise your frame will have lots of play. One last thing, the bottle cage holes are in the wrong place. I asked Kelsey about this before shipping, and she said this is no longer an issue. She was misinformed. The good part is that the bottle cage holes are so far off, the bottom hole is exactly where the top hole should be, so a handy zip-tie to hold the bottom of the cage works great.
It only took a few hours to assemble, and weighed in at only “22.1” lbs, about the same weight as my Scalpel.
On the weekend, I took my Deng-Fu M06 for her maiden voyage. When I arrived at the trailhead, Cannondale was there giving demos. How lucky is that? Now I can compare my new Frankenstein Deng-Fu against the new 2017 $9,500 Scalpel Team.
The Deng-Fu M06 was great. Much better than expected. It is way less twitchy, and handles the drops much better than its predecessor, yet super responsive.
The 2017 Scalpel Team was much stiffer and not as stable on rocky declines. Not much different than my old 2015 Scalpel. I felt like the Cannondale was faster… But after looking at my Strava times, I rode faster on the Deng-Fu, and I got 2 PBs. The Cannondale was probably slower due to exhaustion.
Conclusion:
If you can work on your own bike and have the tools, the Deng-Fu is well worth the money. And what a great way to update the geometry of your old bike. It’s like getting a new bike for a fraction of the cost. The few problems mentioned above were very minor.
But if you’re not handy, than I highly recommend buying a new bike from the store, they will support you and fix any warranty issues. If you purchase a Cannondale, their carbon frames are warranted for life, Deng-Fu is 2 years.
Hope I didn't bore you too much. Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Attached Pics:
Side View
Front View
Loaded on Sea-Sucker bike mounts (photo bombed by my dog)
Fiber washer from Home Depot crazy glued to frame
Zip-tied bottle cage
Cannondale demo compare
