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Road Bike Frames, Wheels & Components / Overall AliExpress carbon pucker factor? + CLANNAD wheels
« on: March 03, 2023, 06:53:01 AM »
Cheers everyone, long-time lurker, first-time poster.
I've ridden a variety of wheel sets over the years, but with the rise of the likes of Trace Velo, Hambini and Cam Nichols featuring Chinese carbon products that are actually well-made, I've been browsing AliExpress for some time now and am interested in purchasing from a company called CLANNAD (https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1101739821?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000008.6.43111299Ycoq1D). Seems they're from Xiamen (where I know a lot of quality components, including Winspace, are made) and have good reviews. They offer a variety of different wheel sets with their own branding, unbranded and replicas.
A couple of questions from the brain trust here:
- Anyone here have experience buying from CLANNAD? I did a search and saw a few mentions of them on this site, but no full reviews.
- If they're a legit factory making decent wheels, is there any reason to think that the quality of their own branded wheels would be any better than those of replicas? I've seen a lot of comments along the lines of "never buy fakes because it's not the factory's own reputation at stake" but it's kind of hard for me to believe they'd manufacture lower-quality hoops just to become fakes.
A bigger question is about your experience with the "pucker factor" with riding Chinese AliExpress wheels. I've read so many comments and articles over the years talking about the potential danger and how sketchy they can be ... and yet, I've never actually seen evidence of catastrophic failures, people ending up in the hospitals, etc. Rather, the only person I know who got hurt from a wheel failure was riding a pair of legit Roval wheels that had a brake track blowout on a long descent. My friend, on the other hand, has a pair of Super Team wheels that he abuses and descends on all the time and no issues. Is the "pucker factor" with Chinese wheels much ado about nothing?
Cheers from Nottinghamshire, UK.
I've ridden a variety of wheel sets over the years, but with the rise of the likes of Trace Velo, Hambini and Cam Nichols featuring Chinese carbon products that are actually well-made, I've been browsing AliExpress for some time now and am interested in purchasing from a company called CLANNAD (https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1101739821?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000008.6.43111299Ycoq1D). Seems they're from Xiamen (where I know a lot of quality components, including Winspace, are made) and have good reviews. They offer a variety of different wheel sets with their own branding, unbranded and replicas.
A couple of questions from the brain trust here:
- Anyone here have experience buying from CLANNAD? I did a search and saw a few mentions of them on this site, but no full reviews.
- If they're a legit factory making decent wheels, is there any reason to think that the quality of their own branded wheels would be any better than those of replicas? I've seen a lot of comments along the lines of "never buy fakes because it's not the factory's own reputation at stake" but it's kind of hard for me to believe they'd manufacture lower-quality hoops just to become fakes.
A bigger question is about your experience with the "pucker factor" with riding Chinese AliExpress wheels. I've read so many comments and articles over the years talking about the potential danger and how sketchy they can be ... and yet, I've never actually seen evidence of catastrophic failures, people ending up in the hospitals, etc. Rather, the only person I know who got hurt from a wheel failure was riding a pair of legit Roval wheels that had a brake track blowout on a long descent. My friend, on the other hand, has a pair of Super Team wheels that he abuses and descends on all the time and no issues. Is the "pucker factor" with Chinese wheels much ado about nothing?
Cheers from Nottinghamshire, UK.