Interesting Aliexpress finds! - good deals, interesting stuff, new products etc!

[bxcc]

Little warning about this lightweight carbon saddle I bought... Rail snapped on the first ride. I am 64kg and it was a ride on asphalt, so nothing too rough....

This looks more like a manufacturing defect to me. Overtightening the clamp bolts shouldn't make it break where the rail attaches to the nose of the saddle. Any chance it's new enough that you can put in a claim with the vendor and AliExpress? Between the wife, kids, and myself, we have a few generic carbon saddles in the fleet, all have been fine.

[jonathanf2]

I caved in and picked up a direct mount 1x aero chainring. The quality of these chainrings are quite nice, though they cost quite a bit more. It has the narrow wide teeth profile which works well with geared bikes.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804752779564.html

[TidyDinosaur]

This looks more like a manufacturing defect to me. Overtightening the clamp bolts shouldn't make it break where the rail attaches to the nose of the saddle. Any chance it's new enough that you can put in a claim with the vendor and AliExpress? Between the wife, kids, and myself, we have a few generic carbon saddles in the fleet, all have been fine.

That was what I was thinking also... I did file a claim and got my money back.

[jonathanf2]

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803455977621.html

I wanted to add some long term feedback on the hollowed out Goldix alloy crankset I purchased awhile back. I guess I jumped the gun and Trace Velo was right about the creaking issues!

After continued use, I noticed creaking with crankset under load (low gear climbing) on my pressfit BB carbon bike. I removed the BB, re-greased it and made sure it was properly secure. The crankset continued to creak. I swapped out the crankset for my Racework carbon crankset and the creaking stopped. I then tried this Goldix crankset on my BSA threaded alloy gravel bike and there was no creaking under load. So it seems this crankset will definitely creak on pressfit carbon bikes. Though I can't confirm if this also applies to BSA threaded carbon bikes.

If you do buy this crankset, I can only recommend it for BSA threaded bikes that are either alloy and/or possibly steel. I had temporarily swapped back my GRX 600 crankset to my gravel bike and it felt so heavy with the steel axle. So I'm glad I didn't have to toss the Goldix crankset to the recycle bin!

[Wet Noodle]

Trace Velo was right about the creaking issues!

I may be wrong, but didn't he mention CRACKING issues with these cranks, as in, they might just break (and not from his own experience, but from user comments)?

[jonathanf2]

I may be wrong, but didn't he mention CRACKING issues with these cranks, as in, they might just break (and not from his own experience, but from user comments)?

The issues I read about were people stripping out their left crank arm, most likely due to under torquing their pinch bolts. I found 8-9.5nm to be the right amount of torque to hold them in place and I replaced the pinch bolts for some higher grade titanium M5x25mm bolts. Also the 7075 T6 alloy axle is the same used on the Racework carbon crankset. Plus I weigh about 68-69kg, if people are breaking their cranks, they either weigh significantly more than me or are dropping their bikes hard sideways causing them to break.

[jonathanf2]

This is cool if you're running older Shimano groupsets. Sensah has made their entire Shimano compatible shifters into carbon now.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805290858230.html

[kbernstein]

Kind of funny to think some people might spend 100 on carbon levers for SEVEN speed

[jonathanf2]

Kind of funny to think some people might spend 100 on carbon levers for SEVEN speed

They also have their cheaper silver alloy shifters for that retro build:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802768979861.html

[Froglover825]

They also have their cheaper silver alloy shifters for that retro build:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802768979861.html

I have an older bike with shimano 10s which i refuse to ride because the shifters are horrible on your hands, i might have to pick these up

[jonathanf2]

I have an older bike with shimano 10s which i refuse to ride because the shifters are horrible on your hands, i might have to pick these up

Just make note, Sensah PHI is for older 10 speed 105/Ultegra/Dura Ace. Sensah Quantum is for 10 speed Tiagra 4700 which has the same pull ratio as 11 speed 105/Ultegra/Dura Ace.

[kbernstein]

Funny sight on chinacycling's latest video


https://www.pandapodium.cc/

Pandapodium is now live. Compared 6 articles and to my big surprise they were all on par or CHEAPER than aliexpress, and have free shipping? Seems amazing on paper

[Wet Noodle]

Compared 6 articles and to my big surprise they were all on par or CHEAPER than aliexpress, and have free shipping? Seems amazing on paper

Had a look myself and searched the xcadey xpower-s
Panda: 329 usd, no mention of import duties and VAT whatsoever(?) which usually means it's not included
Ali (first hit on my google): 320 usd with EU-VAT ... that would translate to ~270 usd before VAT

That is by no means representative or conclusive. Just one single product and I didn't look if it's the same revision and what have you. Still quite a difference.

[s3si1u]

At first sight, the power meter and LTwoo groupset selection is a bit cheaper on Aliexpress.
OTOH there's some cool, very high end looking stuff on there. Excited to see more of this as they grow and expand their selection.

[kbernstein]

At first sight, the power meter and LTwoo groupset selection is a bit cheaper on Aliexpress.
OTOH there's some cool, very high end looking stuff on there. Excited to see more of this as they grow and expand their selection.

I don't know where you live but I'm used to having sales tax already pre-added on sites. I just remembered this is probably not the case for pandapodium, so you can add 20% or so  the prices are still respectable/on par thankfully, just not as much of a bargain as I thought