
The Sketchy World of Fake Bike Gear - tcdent
http://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/components/catch-counterfeiter-sketchy-world-fake-bike-gear
======
bsimpson
It would have been nice for them to explain what they meant by "open mold"
counterfeiting. That this article is the 2nd result on Google if you search
for those terms tells me it isn't well-defined elsewhere.

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acomjean
When I ride I like to have some idea that my bike isn't going to fall apart. I
safety check before my commute. Bikes & helmets are something you kinda don't
want to fail when in traffic.

Bikes are commodities now, except on the high end. Thus the cheap stuff can be
sold as expensive.

These are complex machines. TREK had a recall for an issue that caused a bunch
of injuries.

[http://www.sheldonbrown.com/qr-disk-
brake.html](http://www.sheldonbrown.com/qr-disk-brake.html)

"Ideally, we would want bicycles which are properly assembled, adjusted and
maintained to be free of problems which lead to sudden, catastrophic,
unexpected failure. Any mechanical system will deteriorate sooner or later,
and so an incipient failure should preferably give warning in advance, or be
preceded by another, more benign failure which puts the part out of service,
or be so very unlikely that it is not of serious concern, or a second system
should be able to take over from one which failed. A properly-adjusted
enclosed-cam quick release assembly on a bicycle with no front disk brake
meets this test, by being very unlikely to fail."

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lnanek2
I ordered a highly rated head light and tail light the other day off amazon.
When it came everything was super cheap thin plastic and the head light
wouldn't turn on at all even with fresh batteries. The tail light turned on
once, then my finger pushed the button through the body. Apparently there's a
common amazon hack by sellers where they sell the real thing for a while to
get good ratings, then switch to selling cheap knock offs...

~~~
rahimnathwani
It's not just that. Many items have multiple sellers. When you choose a
seller, you don't know what the ratings for that seller/item combo. So, the
seller may have good ratings from unrelated products, but be selling poor
quality versions of this particular product. The product itself may have
'good' versions currently on sale by other sellers on Amazon.

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kawera
Interesting. But I cannot stop thinking of
[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
tajen
What an excellent, yet dated article. It comes from a time when blogging was a
craft. Now there's not a blog I read without wondering "Is it neutral, or was
the author influenced, or is it a PR piece, or does the full blog belong to a
bigger agenda"...

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Zigurd
This article is an incoherent mess. No hard numbers. No characterization of
the problem: Is it factory seconds being stolen and sold? Is it contract
manufacturers selling US OEM products they are contractually disallowed from
selling?

It seems unlikely that a frame sold in extremely limited quantities would be
reverse engineered and copied. It is more likely that OEMs have lost control
of their suppliers while chasing cheaper costs. Boo fricken hoo.

~~~
mschuster91
> It seems unlikely that a frame sold in extremely limited quantities would be
> reverse engineered and copied.

The more limited and sought-after a product is, the higher is the incentive
for a faker.

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harshaw
I'd be interesting to understand where these issues fall in terms of
international agreements. Basically, where is the international pressure to
not let China sell shit that will cause injuries?

The world's main carbon manufacturing base (for bikes at least) seems to be in
Taiwan. It is not surprise that when you have all the tools (Mandrel's, carbon
sheets, etc) and expertise that there is a class of people building knockoffs.
I don't think you could find many people in the US even remotely capable of
making a knock-off.

~~~
johansch
Government regulation moves way too slow for stuff like this.

Any pressure against China will need to be well-defined, meaning it will take
a decade for some committee to figure out regulations.

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TickleMeHellNo
This whole article is a shill piece for specialized, and for the LBS racket as
a whole. How is this contributing anything?

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toss1
This article is too mild, not exaggerated or a commercial advocacy piece as
some commenters assert.

I know lot about carbon fiber. I own and run a business designing and hands-on
fabricating carbon fiber components and products for aerospace/defense, top
motorsports teams, UAV/Drones, sporting goods and more. (started this 12yrs
ago after one of the software companies I co-founded sold).

I was a competitive cyclist and still Mtn Bike a lot and race occasionally.
Obviously, I think carbon components are fantastic. I could make my own, but I
do not.

Here's why:

ENGINEERED MATERIALS: Carbon Fiber composites are an engineered material. This
is great because the strength is very specific, and we can put the strength
_exactly_ where we need it, and omit the strength -and the weight- where it is
not needed.

This also means that the materials MUST be properly engineered to yield
acceptable performance. This is NOT just fancy plastic or "black aluminum".

Get the engineering right, and you have amazing parts that are both stronger
and lighter than steel or aluminum. It is not unusual for us to outperform an
aluminum product with a 40-50% weight savings and higher strength numbers.

BUT, get the engineering wrong, and a carbon part that looks massively
overbuilt, thicker and heavier than the equivalent steel part, will fail
catastrophically.

Moreover, there are THOUSANDS of combinations of grades of carbon fibers and
epoxies, all appropriate for different applications, and these must also be
properly selected.

So, even if you obtain the exact molds used by Specalized to make their frame,
without knowing the exact materials and design, it would be very difficult to
make a frame that performed properly.

FABRICATION PROCESS: The fabrication process is critical. \- Everything must
be cleaned properly. \- Every single one of the hundreds of pieces of carbon
fiber must be cut properly, then placed properly in the mold, in the correct
sequence, and the correct orientation. - The mold components and compression
tools must be placed properly and achieve and maintain the designed pressures.
\- The heat and cooling cycle must be applied properly. \- The demolding must
occur properly. \- Any post-cure cycling must occur properly. \- Any secondary
bonding must be prepared and executed properly.

Any failure in these hundreds of steps, and the frame will have a flaw that
can hurt of kill someone. (not that it necessarily will, but it easily could
-- simply consider hitting bumps in a fast descent -- that will be the exact
point of maximum load, most likely to cause failure, and now the cyclist is
Wyle E. Coyote... not fun).

The fabrication process is analogous to having to ship software where we
cannot make an error-corrected perfect digital copy, but each new copy must be
hand-transcribed before shipping, and of course cannot be destructively
tested. How well would you trust bootleg software running your heart pacemaker
if it had to be copied the way monks copied bibles in the middle ages?

TESTING PROCESS: Both the engineering design and the fabrication process must
be subjected to rigorous testing.

On the engineering side, even the most sophisticated modeling software needs
real-world test validation of even basic parts models, as the number of
variables is huge, and an initial design often does not yield the expected
results.

On the production side, every step of the process must be carefully designed,
and verified to accurately and repeatedly produce parts that perform as
engineered.

BOTTOM LINE: This is obviously just skimming the surface, but the bottom line
is that there are hundreds of opportunities for failures to creep in even when
trying to do it right, and ridiculous opportunities for counterfeiters to cut
corners. And most of them will NOT be readily visible to casual inspection of
the product.

I could, with my knowledge and access to my own shop, make a pair of carbon
fiber handlebars to ride tomorrow. But I wouldn't ride them further than
around the parking lot. We'd need to make a big investment in designing then
fabricating and testing scores of units before having the confidence to take
one for a real ride.

But, standing in the shoes of a desperate counterfeiter in China, where
ripping-off IP is the ethical norm, and who will be selling parts to unseen
and probably despised customers on the other side of the globe, and who
probably doesn't understand enough about the engineering pitfalls anyway ...
... sure, just copy some molds, buy any old carbon, and start slapping it in
and cooking it, just make sure it looks good.

I've seen even legit parts come in from Asia with crazy shortcuts, never mind
the counterfeit stuff. I've also personally witnessed those parts causing
disasters.

As a rider, just seeing this crap coming into the US is truly frightening.
Even the legit parts are cause for worry -- are the US guys actually riding
herd on the Chinese QC well enough? Probably.

The counterfeit or low-market stuff? Forget it -- you literally couldn't pay
me enough to ride it anywhere further than across the parking lot. Anyone who
considers doing so is really ignorant of the real risks.

It's just physics, and physics does not care about you.

~~~
rconti
Great read. I wish it was higher up, below the posts about how to buy said
knockoff frames. Thanks.

~~~
toss1
YW; I just saw the post late, but was really annoyed at the deep ignorance of
some of the comments here -- it really demonstrated the problems of very smart
and knowledgeable people making judgements outside their area of expertise
with insufficient information. Even if it was not read much, I needed to at
least add some basic facts to the discussion. Thx for letting me know that it
was worth it!

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bickfordb
There are certainly novel designs and fancy welding, but bike frames are
essentially tubes of carbon fiber / steel formed or welded together with the
manufacturers brand sticker slapped on top. Seems like this could be ideal for
a Warby Parker like entrant.

~~~
jdietrich
There are plenty of Warby Parker equivalents, and they get a brief mention in
the article. Lots of western companies sell "open mold" parts, where an OEM
sells generic components for resellers to apply their own branding to.

Some of these resellers have excellent reputations - here in the UK, Planet X
are extremely popular amongst serious racers. There is a crucial difference
between these products and an unbranded product from Aliexpress. Western
sellers are obliged to perform product testing, they have a brand name to
defend, and they can be sued.

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mindslight
> _Sure enough, you have a frame that looks dead-on like it’s a Venge,” he
> recalls. “You could tell it was Chinese-direct. But I’d bought things from
> overseas on eBay, so I was comfortable with it.”_

This guy straight up says he was "comfortable" buying a counterfeit frame
(anything coming direct from China with a non-China trademark), so what
exactly is the point of this article? He played around and lost.

China, being an entire country, has some great stuff and some absolute shite.
If bike parts are anything like electronics, I'd recommend buying unbranded or
Chinese-branded stuff. Inspect the quality thoroughly on receipt. And if you
want the ability to return poor quality, pay a little overhead and buy from a
US middleman who is incentivized to do the QA legwork for you.

~~~
Asbostos
China actually has export controls to protect the rest of the world from its
bad products. Like you say, it must have a Chinese brand otherwise it's either
a fake or illegally obtained (out the back door of the factory).

~~~
mindslight
Ah, this is actually formalized? My intuition says that Chinese brands would
know how to police through the appropriate channels, but it's not surprising
it's an actually an official thing.

What I can't really figure out is how to reliably get the "better" unbranded
parts (small quantities, using ebay/aliexpress). The only indicator seems to
be how consumer-targeted the particular item is. Electronic components /
assemblies have been fine, while 4 out of 4 phone chargers I tested were pure
garbage.

Obviously creating a relationship with a manufacturer is the way to go for
larger batches, which is another reason buying from a US importer makes sense.
Then again I've got to wonder when I see the same-looking unbranded items in
US retail stores, if those ones actually meet their ratings or if the type of
people buying them will never verify.

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resoluteteeth
There are some pretty obvious PR motivations for Specialized here:

1) Try to dissuade people from buying cheap Chinese frames (not just the
counterfeit frames in the article, but the higher quality ones that have been
gaining popularity on various internet forums).

2) Justify Specialized's extreme litigiousness with respect to trademarks
(which has gotten it a lot of negative press) by spreading the idea that it's
motivated by the goal of protecting its customers from unsafe products.

On the other hand, I'm sure counterfeits are really a problem. It's probably
tempting for Chinese companies that are making a pittance selling bike parts
to other companies to make copies to get prices that are many times higher.

~~~
gburt
"Surprisingly, Tombragel’s fake fork passed impact testing—but barely. If this
had been a real Specialized, it would be re-engineered to pass by a higher
margin."

This line is when I decided this was probably a PR placement. I guess that
maybe took me a bit longer than most, but it just feels so stilted.

"We passed our test, but we'd want to pass more." \- then why did it 'pass'?

~~~
x0x0
That struck me as well, though as a consumer, you'd like to hope that gear has
been engineered to exceed tests, not to the minimum. Though perhaps the
minimum should be increased.

The article also contained examples of catastrophic failures in use of
handlebars and catastrophic failures in testing of helmets.

~~~
elithrar
> Though perhaps the minimum should be increased.

It may have been—which is what makes the angle in this PR piece so
questionable. The minimum might be a value that is equivalent to a 200kg rider
jumping off a 15ft cliff and not breaking the forks.

(or it may not be, but I'm sure you get my point: Specialized just wants to
seed doubt regardless of quality)

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p1mrx
This problem has a straightforward technical solution: manufacturers should
put a unique serial number on every product, and encourage customers to
validate the number after purchasing. A counterfeit will either have a bogus
number that's not in the database, or a cloned number that shows up in two or
more places.

I noticed that Spigen uses this approach, after buying a $9 case for my phone.

~~~
Asbostos
Yes. For such a high priced item, this should be easily economical. Some
medicines already do this. It seems kind of obvious.

~~~
rconti
They almost certainly do. My Trek carbon fiber bike (~$3000 fully built brand
new in 2008) was the lowest-end full-carbon bike they had that was still made
in the US. It has a registration # (on the bottom bracket I believe). In fact,
every bike I'm aware of does, for registering with the police in case of
theft.

------
nl
This is something I know a little about. I used to run a moderately popular
website cataloging unbranded Chinese framesets, and builds using them.

This article rides that line between expressing genuine problems and trying to
scare people.

Yes, there are plenty of fake frames around. Yes, I'm sure some EBay carbon
handlebars are unsafe.

But at the same time there are lots (more?) Chinese frames around that aren't
"fake", but are just less costly. For example, there is the Hong-Fu
FM-066/069, which is kind of a cross between a Cervelo R5 and a Cannondale
SuperSix, except around ~$500. It's light (around ~800 grams) and has a good
reputation for quality.

Interestingly, one of the big selling points is that they are quicker to
market with features than the major brands. Until last year if you wanted a
Cervelo R3/R5 with Di2 cable routing you had to drill holes in the frame
yourself. The FM-66 could be ordered like that, or with conventional cables,
and with your choice of bottom bracket (instead of the annoying BBRight thing
Cervelo uses). Same with disc brakes: the FM-069 is a road disc bike, out two
years before Cervelo or Cannondale managed it.

~~~
001sky
at some stage all of the implicit knowledge is or will be actually sitting
over in taiwan/china. many high end frames are performing in similar
peformance buckets, despite the stickers on them. And the number of facilities
is much smaller than the number of brands.

This is like generic drugs at some stage, all the US prices are high
subsidizing low cost elsewehere. grey market importation is basically a
sensible solution. the incumbents will rely on brand name and safety scare
tactics to limit the arbitrage. but its probably worth seeing thru this.

carbon reinforce plastic is ultimately just fancy plastic. there is also no
need for an 800g frameset, most punters are better served by 1100g of more
durable and longer-lasting design. That is, those people buying retail. If
your stuff is free or grey market or pro-deal its another story...amortization
of capital expense is entirely diffent math in that case.

~~~
toss1
"carbon reinforce plastic is ultimately just fancy plastic"

NO, it isn't.

That is a very erroneous and dangerous assumption.

Carbon Fiber Composite is an Engineered Material, which is very different from
ordinary plastics or metals, in just about every important way.

Please see my comment above and do some research, but do not spread this false
concept.

~~~
001sky
A (trivially) true but empty statement without a appropriate context for
relevance.

~~~
toss1
Sorry you missed the context. Per the comment, please read my other post which
provides a good primer on high level detail and perhaps do some research on
Engineered Materials vs Monolithic Materials.

I'll also provide a bit more detail here: Monolithic materials, such as
ordinary metals or plastics are substantially the same in all directions. You
can work with them by getting the basic info on their properties, and then
design and cut them from any direction. Other than edge cases pushing the
limits where you have to watch for grain effects in some metals, you can cut
it and shape it any way you like.

In contrast, for engineered materials, at the most basic level, their
properties are HIGHLY directional. The cool thing about this is that it means
that we can put the strength exactly where it is needed, and omit the strength
(and weight) where it is not needed.

BUT, this means that these materials MUST be engineered. The designer MUST
understand the details of the loads and load paths, and design the material to
handle it. The fabricator MUST follow those designs exactly in hundreds of
parameters. Otherwise, the part will fail.

On the good side, it is not unusual for us to beat the performance of aluminum
by 40-50%.

On the bad side, it would not be hard to make a carbon part that appears
massively overbuilt, heavier and thicker than steel, yet would fail
catastrophically.

(note that this is just the most basic level, and overlooks issues of the many
types and grades of carbon or the hundreds of types of epoxy, chemistries,
cure rates, bonding, inserts, etc., and their appropriate application.)

Carbon Fiber is most definitely NOT "just fancy plastic" or 'black aluminum',
and that assumption is wrong and can be very dangerous.

(ironically, I agree with many of your other points, but that assumption
really needs to be put to rest)

------
everyone
Meh. If your not a pro competing in the tour de france then there will be
almost no performance difference between the $18,000 bike described and a c
$600 bike.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4MIEkIBZs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4MIEkIBZs)

When cycling your power/weight ratio is determined by _you_. Its obvious the
purpose of these $1000+ bikes is to be status symbols for rich idiots.

~~~
Asbostos
Yep.

If you use a bike for exercise, then you want it to be hard work.

If you use it for moving around, then add a motor and battery.

Lightweight frames are only for artificial competitions. Then what are you
competing at? Who can afford the most expensive equipment?

~~~
mmmBacon
Yeah there's a bit more to it than that. Lighter stuff allows you to go
further with less energy. Lighter wheels and tires make a really big
difference as does tire rolling resistance. In something like a century (100
mike ride) a lighter bike may make the difference between finishing and not
finishing.

Also wind resistance goes up as the square of velocity so it's harder to go
faster than it is to simply ride around a clunky heavy bike.

There is a saying in cycling: strong,light, cheap. Pick two.

~~~
Asbostos
All those factors can be addressed with a small hub motor and battery which
together is much cheaper than the high-efficiency parts. If you set the power
level right, you could even tune it to give the same reduction in effort for
the rider.

Batteries and motors are more energy efficient than humans, so it's good from
a more pure energy point of view too.

~~~
analog31
To me, that seems to add a lot of weight, cost, complexity, maintenance
(battery charging and replacement), and failure modes (running out of juice)
when you could just spend a couple more bucks for a lighter bike that's also
more fun to ride.

