Who's Holding The Bag?

Who's Holding The Bag?

Counterfeit fashion is one thing. Counterfeit engineering is another.

Premium brands always face pressure on price by "good enough" copies, especially when the originals were long ago outsourced to who knows where. Brand loyalty goes both ways...

It's interesting that the article said that the differential between American and Chinese production costs was much narrower now, $1 to $0.96.

I'd guess that only applies to high end materials fabrication, but it still makes one wonder if a renaissance (of sorts) of American manufacturing is possible.

Also, too many masters racers are penny pinching whiny douches.

Originally shared by Eric Hansen

In short: buying that 'good deal' is taking your life into your own hands.
http://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear/components/catch-counterfeiter-sketchy-world-fake-bike-gear

Comments

  1. Eric HansenJune 16, 2016 at 6:53 AM

    When I saw the near cost parity, I had the same thought; why don't we just re-import those jobs?! Obviously there would be some learning curve, as the best layup engineers in the world are now all in Taiwan.

    I'm posting this to the tri club's facespace page later today, because though they get a tremendous deal at our shop, they ALL look for carbon wheels and frames online. Two guys are on $300 carbon wheelsets, which have been fine so far, leading all of them to see no downsides.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Drew McCarthyJune 16, 2016 at 6:59 AM

    Composites are kind of a special case in materials, as I expect you know. Works great, until it doesn't, then explodes into flinders. But composites offer a lot of performance advantages (until they don't). It's not something you want to go No Name or Super Cheap with.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Drew McCarthyJune 16, 2016 at 7:02 AM

    I'm old enough to remember the lure of Drillium. Until I saw perfectly good gear unexpectedly (and often painfully) self destruct. Took the fun right out of it, yes sir.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Eric HansenJune 16, 2016 at 7:03 AM

    If it's engineered well, it'll fail well. I've got a frame in the back of my truck right now that failed safely in the seatpost. It was our opinion that the rider crashed, remained seated on the saddle, and his weight twisted the end of the seatpost against the inside of the seat tube, cracking it around its circumference. Specialized gave the guy a new frame for free, and had us field destroy the old one. It could have been repaired, but Specialized doesn't like that kind of stuff floating around. We turned it into a noise maker.

    A co-worker and a customer both crashed their road bikes and broke their carbon bars in the same way; the right hook was cracked under the band clamp of the shifter. Both were able to keep riding by using the tops, and the bars stayed in one piece.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Eric HansenJune 16, 2016 at 7:04 AM

    Drillium is a case of Garage Engineering, though.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Drew McCarthyJune 16, 2016 at 7:15 AM

    I've used composite components and materials on both bikes and boats. It's great stuff, but not for every purpose. It's especially prone to impact damage. We've got a carbon fiber spinnaker pole that we love because it is light and easy to handle. However, I've had to repair it several times (from impact damage), and the weight of the repairs is bringing it closer and closer to the aluminum one it replaced (which we still, obviously, have).

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eric HansenJune 16, 2016 at 7:16 AM

    Impacts that damage a carbon component would also damage an aluminum or steel one...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Drew McCarthyJune 16, 2016 at 7:19 AM

    Ain't nothing inherently wrong with Garage Engineering. Especially when done by Real Engineers. There are always perils due to Optimization. I just decided I'd rather suffer for other causes than Weight Weenie-ism.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Drew McCarthyJune 16, 2016 at 7:23 AM

    Of course. But orders of magnitude less likely to lead to Catastrophic Failure.

    ReplyDelete

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