anyone bought magene prducts from Taoboa? the P515 power meter is showing for around $360AUD delivered which is a pretty attractive price

Be careful buying Magene PM from Taobao, they have a regional lock on some of their products.

I bought a Thinkrider PP5 Spider from Taobao though, no issues. Shipped direct to me Australia. As well as a few other bike products.

Does any one know a cheap crankset you can mount these on? I can only find carbon cranks.

Yep, Senicx XR3. About 130AUD on AliExpress. Have seen it for 90AUD on Taobao.

Easton, 29MM. Total cost combined with power meter is 250. Insane value. (If it works lol)

I have some Problems with Seatpost slippage. To the owners: Which Torque do you apply? Did anybody found a official Torque spec from seraph / tantan?

I started off with 6NM, had some slippage so bought some carbon paste and cranked it up to 8nm
 No issues after 5000 odd kms.

I have it on good authority that GP Lama is testing this at the moment. (Ie his Instagram  )

Will be interesting to see if this is competitive. Wonder what the minimum chain ring size would be, cheap option for gravel bike.

In the name of science: I actually did it: I ordered the groupset from taobao to the warehouse of my shipping agent. So far i paid 2599 yuan + 3% international card fee so 2677 yuan which equals around 340€. There's usually also a 1,8% fee from my credit card to convert the yuan to euro. So the total price should come out to 2725 yuan which is 345€.

I will let you know about the shipping price from my shipping agent to germany. I'm pretty optimistic that it will come out to less than 400€ including import taxes etc.

For comparison: From wheeltop website it's 599€ and from aliexpress it's at least 470€ without any taxes paid, so at least 500€ probably more.

If everything goes right this is a good deal. If it doesn't work out like i imagine it might have been a really stupid idea. Wish me luck.

Good luck! Report back as I've had it on my spreadsheet for my gravel build. No buy until you give us the good news 

Quote from: waltini on November 22, 2024, 03:26:50 PM

I bought one of these.

Maximum clearance is 30c, 32c is dependant on wheel and tyre combination.

I paid $1800 delivered to Australia.

If I had my time again I would have just built up a bike from scratch. If you start replacing parts it will end up costing a lot more.

The wheels are really heavy, 1900 grams. (I got the carbon wheels)

I have replaced the following: Crankset, axles, saddle, tyres. New wheels will be the next purchase which will take the bike to around 7kg.
[/quote

Hi I'm in Australia also, and it seems like an awesome deal still. I would want to get the weight low, are you sure you were able to get it to 7kgs? That seems perfect. I have rim brake light bikes at 7.2, so if accurate that would be very cool. I would also want to change to 38cm bars.

You can but it doesn't make sense financially. Get a more modern frame and build it up. Otherwise you're replacing wheels, crank, handlebar and saddle.

Hello everyone,
are there any more buyers here in the forum who can share their experiences?
I am interested in the bike as a cost-effective alternative and am thinking about placing an order.
Some good photos in daylight would also be nice.
What weaknesses have you identified? I would be happy to receive some more information...

I am the one who posted above. I've probably put another 1000km on since then.

It's fine for an entry level bike, it I had my time again I'd build up one of the highly regarded frames here and spend a bit more money.

Wheels are heavy, handlebar is heavy, frame is heavy. But if you're a heavy lad it's fine.

Only problem has been axles as I mentioned above. I snapped the fork when I had a tumble but it was easy getting a new one shipped.

If you're advanced, this isn't the bike for you. I'm still on the road to lose weight, but this bike will be relegated to trainer duties next season.