Chinese Carbon MTB Forums
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Re: Skywing Carbon - Anyone Heard of Them?
Also...is it just me, or are all these D2C frames starting to look the same? Are they just mostly coming from the same factories, but but being represented by different sales agents? Private label exists at every level in any industry. Sarto makes frames for brands like WyndyMilla, Heroin, Condor etc. just like how Caruso makes/used to make suits for Ralph Lauren Purple Label and Brooks Brothers Golden Fleece among others. February 26, 2022, 01:49:38 AM |
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Re: Any chinese frames using high modulus carbon like the real Specialized frames?
The upcoming Elilee Blize will have an ultralight 680g variant constructed from a mixture of Toray T1100 and M40X. You also have the Dizo Epic Pro which is constructed from Mitsubishi MR70 and Dyneema. These two won't be cheap and they certainly won't they sit at that 2-3K US sweetspot. According to Elilee, T1100 costs 5x of T800 and M40X costs 10x of T800...you do the math. For reference Elilee's top level EVO XXE triathlon frame retailed at around 4.5K US in China. Finally you have the not-as-high-end Pardus Robin Evo that employs a mixture of T1100, T800 and M40 for its carbon layup. Do note that carbon supply is massively constrained worldwide which means that there is next to no excess material left for no name brands. Since imported material is hard to come by and there are actually export restrictions placed on top level T1100 due to military applications, most open mould makers source their material from Sinofibers who produce T1000 and T800 domestically in China. Sinofibers has small batch T1100 & M40X equivalent material (ZT9 & ZM40X) on top of their recently commercialised T1000 but currently only T800 (ZT8) is mass produced and readily available. Besides Sinofibers, Tianshun produce T800 equivalent material (TS800) and are also working on their own T1000. March 05, 2022, 12:30:47 AM |
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Re: Velobuild VB-R-177
Just dropping a quick pic/build blurb of my 177 for y'all to see  -Frame size M, 420x100 one piece bar and stem -Total weight is about 8kg/18 lb. as you see it with pedals, cages, mount, etc (without bottles). -Delivered as an og black frame. Custom paint and decals done by me. -Groupset: Sram hydro mechanical mashup with Shimano crankset and chain and Deckas lightweight rotors. Centerline XR rotors are sitting on my desk. I'll switch them out eventually, I just have no issue with the performance of the Deckas rotors and they're significantly lighter as well. -Wheel/tires: 38mm depth/25mm inner width Chinese carbon wheels sourced from OfferUp for a good deal, I think they're Superteam. Matched up with 29mm Enve SES tires. Tubeless setup. -Saddle: Prologo NDR 143. I miss my carbon Velobuild saddle  the VB saddle pooped out and Chris has sent a replacement. Can't wait for it to arrive.-Photos show the VB seatpost. I'm now running a 0 offset carbon seatpost. -Time ATAC XC4 Pedals (yes, mtb pedals) May do a longer review/video/photoshoot later on if time permits, detailing the build specs, issues, build and ride experiences, paint/decal process, etc. May 31, 2022, 01:48:17 AM |
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Re: Tarmac SL7 "copies" post pictures and weight of yours :)
I am talking to this seller from TFSA (which I never heard of before and they are new on Aliexpress) in case they could fix a custom version for me without shifter holes and raw carbon from the mould. IIRC TFSA is the OEM behind brands like Sava, Twitter and Delihea Rather than being a simple purveyor of generic frames like most open mould brands, TFSA is a bit different because they got their start making literal fake frames. In terms of general credibility and quality, I'd rate TFSA below the average open mould brand. There is no guarantee that tolerance critical OEM parts (especially seatposts) will fit either because although they may appear close, dimensions will never be truly 1:1 since they're not working off the same factory mould. June 03, 2022, 01:00:02 PM |
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Re: I Am Slowly Getting Fed Up (Crybaby Rant)
What are some popular Chinese domestic brands? I'd love to get my hands on a Pardus, Dare, or DIZO frameset... Here's the thing, if you manage to get your hands on one of these brands it's because you're buying through a shipping agent or unproven seller where your back to square one of having no support Pardus is only in the business of selling complete bikes via dealers so getting your hands on a frameset in China means working something out with your dealer (expensive) or waiting for one to pop up on Xianyu (second hand/bulk goods platform). They have some overseas dealers but only in UAE and Malaysia IIRC. People on the forums love the Super Sport (cheap but decent starter bike like BROSS) and Spark EVO. The ZGL CR41 SL2 is an internet darling WW frame that was popular a couple years back when the company (huge OEM that supposedly weaves their own carbon) was still trying to promote their own brand. The Quick Zeit Pro (aka Carbonda CFR 1056) was also pretty popular. BROSS is a new, aggressively marketed brand that was supposedly started by the Cube OEM and official China agent, but their bread and butter is super inexpensive partial 105 endurance geo complete bikes rather than anything high end or racey. The mid range complete race bike segment is dominated by Giant and Merida. People like to recommend SCOM, UP-VINE and Weir (eponymous brand of a prominent LBS in Nanjing) for wheels. Farsports was actually in hot water for having super rude customer service in China but quite a lot of people do ride their in-house brand (not Wheelsfar). Winspace was also embroiled in forum controversy when they swapped parts without notice (Sapim spokes to Pillar due to shortage) so their reputation has basically plummeted. SEKA is slowly and steadily gaining in popularity for custom frameset builds while EXS is easily the most legit high end component brand. My personal favorites: Elilee (really nice frames, OSPWs & upcoming crankset, paint done by CarbonExpert), EXS (aims for the absolute best stiffness-to-weight in their products, makes cockpits, wheelsets and has an upcoming crankset IIRC), Pardus (proper in-house brand from a huge OEM), Caffeine Frameworks (custom steel framebuilder who experiments a lot with carbon, paint done by Unice Colorworks), CarbonExpert (carbon repair & painting), Kong 2 Studio (best custom painter in China IMO), Incolor (painting, crankset), Voicevelo/Voice for Victory (XC MTB frames, cockpits, seatposts, wheels), Builder Reserve (custom wheelbuilder), Trigon (OEM of Pinarello MOST & Shimano PRO cockpit components, their new AR01 frame is seriously cool), BLKTEC (cockpits and wheels, OEM is Trigon), HSCER (ceramic BBs), RCRACE (super boutique cassettes & TCR Adv SL ISP clamps), 0011 Cycle (hubs), Niuju (custom 3D printed headset covers for cable routing e.g. adapting Venge/SL7 stems onto Cannondales), S-PARTS (Ti screws) and Slipstream Cycling (clothing). June 20, 2022, 12:39:58 PM |
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Re: I Am Slowly Getting Fed Up (Crybaby Rant)
Dude, where did you come from and are there more like you? Seriously though, out of curiosity are you actually part of the industry or just a prolific researcher of all bike things in China? Of course, only if you are comfortable answering I gather that you are actually located in China. June 20, 2022, 01:33:03 PM |
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Re: I Am Slowly Getting Fed Up (Crybaby Rant)
Thanks guys, I'm just a huge nerd who found himself an exciting but digestible niche to obsess with Regarding The One Pro, not many people use it. It's in an awkward market position where people with higher budgets would rather buy Seka or Farsports cockpits and those more price sensitive just use the existing ones included with their framesets. IIRC some forum posts talked about the topcap not fitting well and the bar end wall thickness not being uniform? There was also this very scary stem area failure that I think put a lot of people off buying it. But it happened half a year ago at around product launch so perhaps the issues have been ironed out by now? A lot of people are now either using the EXS alloy stem/carbon bar combo or waiting for the EXS Aerover cockpit to come to market. The latter definitely won't be cheap though. June 20, 2022, 02:38:27 PM |
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Re: I Am Slowly Getting Fed Up (Crybaby Rant)
Yeah and that EXS combo people have been waiting for ages to see new car refers to his new bike, I think he crashed trying to avoid someone? It's definitely a weird spot to have a failure, on second thought I don't think it broke by itself or was even the cause of the accident. OP didn't really elaborate and this is also the only negative post I could find concerning the cockpit so make of it what you will. There were some more recent forum posts of people using it but they didn't say if it was good or bad. Failure aside I still do think that it's a good looking, well executed product. June 20, 2022, 03:51:15 PM |
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Re: Velobuild VB-R-168 Frame
I’m constantly amazed how much I learn in this forum. 52 vs 51.8mm diameter. Crazy. Wonder if it’s because the metric/imperial dimension conversion. July 26, 2022, 08:23:54 PM |
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Re: Any chinese frames using high modulus carbon like the real Specialized frames?
So they actually went with a 28mm spindle ... WHYYYYYYYY easy conversion to DUB and 30mm BBs with the protective reducer to prevent axle from grinding against the bearings. You still get the native 24mm support (which is super nice) July 28, 2022, 10:34:24 PM |
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Wasn't first pictures/spoken of in late 2020? IIRC projected for late Q4 this year or early next year