So I had buddy who runs his own private OEM brand through Mondince put me in contact with them earlier this week. Truthfully I never really heard of Mondince until this forum. And nothing but high remarks from my friend. This was his idea that I connect with them.
Anyway, I'm working on getting a frameset for long term review. My suspicion though is the frame probably won't deliver until mid to late Summer. The overall geometry, pricing, and customer feedback of Mondince takes me back to the peak Chinertown years during the pandemic.
Yes I love the natural progression and increased exposure of Far East brands over the years. Of course that comes with price bumps. But I'll always have a tiny place in my heart for those $700-$1000 prices frames that have a history of being well made.
We know they overlap heavily with Long Teng. We know Long Teng OEMs for the likes of Cube, Argon 18, and more. So your friend's company is probably a mini Cube, aka yet another "brand" / western client that buys frames from OEMs. Afaik, nuance comes in with open / closed moulds, prototyping vs off the shelf layups and so on.
Mondince is a marketing / salesforce forward entity, with Long Teng being the factory. Maybe if you're Cube, you deal with Long Teng, and if you're small, you deal with Mondince.
Also, if you ask Alisa nicely, you can get that frame straight from Long Teng, which tells me it's highly likely to be the new open mould aero 2026 iteration, probably the successor to my own 268 that shows its age now.
Bromaxxing over.
Looking fwd to your review.
