Trek Madone frame

[abdbeg]

Hey there, i'm sorry in advance for all my grammatical mistakes, not a native speaker.

So, i'm really obsessed with trek madone, but because i'm living in country where the official minimum salary is 80$, i was started to looking at rip off framesets, but i couldn't find any review or information whatsoever. I haven't bought it yet, i'm on the path of making investigation about it's quality and reliability.


1) Let's begin with seller investigation, i've found three main sellers on Aliexpress that sells this frame:
Taiwan Eisen https://www.aliexpress.ru/store/5257218
Rocking Cyling store https://www.aliexpress.ru/store/2189015 (one of the forum members bought Emonda frame from them: https://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,4029.msg42719.html#msg42719

And Taobao store: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=694413006667

So, i think there are several manufacturers, at least two, and there a few reason for that, the first one is the frame weight difference is tremendous, 16750 (eisen) and 2045 (taobao), which is huge difference, the second one is that Taobao store have 2023 replica of Madone already, but eisen is planning to release their in April.


2) Frame photos, i collected all the photos from Aliexpress sellers:

Eisen: https://ibb.co/album/LYjQkz
Rocking: https://ibb.co/album/xXdb8d

So, what i learned is that these pictures are low quality, so it's really hard to judge the quality of the frame, i asked sellers to send me high resolution photos, haven't received them yet. But, here are close shots that i already have (all photos from rocking store, waiting photos from eisen, taobao seller didn't want to send high res photos):

BB:https://ibb.co/xMkN9BB https://ibb.co/g7BMn5r https://ibb.co/NjWBXQf
Handlebar: https://ibb.co/9nJFprd https://ibb.co/R3BvkcZ

So, in conclusion, quality is very similar to what Hambini reviewed, Chinarello replica, it has similar problems with BB and some slight imperfection on the stem, but not bad overall.


3) IsoSpeed, many have concerns regarding it, but i made some research, and it's actually a fairly simple mechanism, my most worried part was damper, i thought it was kind of precise and hard to manufacture thing, but in reality it's just a button with (what seems) elastomer: https://ibb.co/MDhYcV5, which is also mentioned on Trek page: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/inside_trek/isospeed/, so i don't think it's that hard to replicate.


4) Carbon fiber, they claim that they use T1000 CF, i asked them is this a Toray, but haven't received the reply yet.


5) If something breaks by your fault, you can buy replacement parts from seller at least Eisen confirmed that you can.


If there will be more information, i will try to share it with you.

[madmax]

As someone who owns an actual Trek Madone SL-7 eTap  (size 56cm)

1. The frames are very well made & the support from Trek is top notch
2. The bike itself is very, very fast & twitchy. It will go in the direction you point it and take you with it
3. The isospeed is pretty good, if you use a comfortable saddle
4. Bontrager tires are terrible
5. Bike will weigh in at around 19lbs with the sram force groupset

Now, rather than buy a clone & risk your neck/spine/other parts, you could get a used Trek (warranty is still good) or a frame from Velobuild/Winspace/Eleves etc etc, all of whom seem to have better warranty than other sellers

That being said, the Madone is designed for all out speed and is not very comfortable on a long ride, so if you are looking for a bike that is a good climber and lighter and comfortable then the Emonda is a much better frame/bike to buy

[oleg]

Plus from me for the previous poster about Elves, Winspace, Yoleo and possibly Velobuild.
I had negative experiences with ICAN, but got the money back.
Have build a bike with Winspace T1500 and can not be more happy. I have choosen every single component I wanted, everything is personalized and customized for my wishes. Total cost is 4k Euros.
Although, I can afford myself to buy a 2 or 3 Madons, I am not doing so.
So, just think that you can have same or even better performance and have plenty of cash left.

[ENEP]

For Madone look-a-like, I would choose TanTan/Seraph TT-X34 (disc brake) or TT-X35 (rim brake)

TT-X34
http://tantancycling.com/index.php?_m=mod_product&_a=view&p_id=1043

TT-X35
http://tantancycling.com/index.php?_m=mod_product&_a=view&p_id=1047

More info here also: http://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,3853.0.html