Just been looking on ebay, and see you can get a carbon frame for £179 from china, just woundering if anyone has got on and what your thoughts are?

Extremely cheap. We pay more than that when we buy then in 100’s at a time.
Either I am terrible at my job or those are shit.

there are loads of people on mbr who like them.

http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/chinese-carbon-29er-640919.html

50+ pages

I’m not sure what shape you would have to be to fit those… very short top tubes 😕

I have a carbon 29er frame, fork and headset deals on order. Due to arrive later this week. I researched these and could find very few negative reports on them, lots of unproven speculation but mainly positive comments from those who have them, so took the plunge. Top tube is 593mm approx 23.72inch for an 18 inch frame.

I bought a carbon road frame direct from flyxii, quality seems good although I’ve not built it.

Quite a few on MTBR have bought direct from hongfu and dengfu.

I’d buy direct rather go through ebay as A) you don’t know who is selling on ebay and B) they are 10% cheaper direct (no ebay fees!).

Budget for Import duty 5.7% and then vat 20% on top of the shipped price + £15 handling fee. Some people get lucky and customs doesn’t pull their parcel.

I’d buy 2, it’d still be cheap and by cutting one in half you’d have some idea of how safe the other may be.

I’ve seen some real dog’s dinners inside some carbon frames.

Jameso, Which frames / manufacturers? Ebay sellers or hongfu?

Does it matter what the inside of a carbon frame looks like? I don’t know I’m no expert.

carbon fibre frames are made of lots of little bits of sheet, all layed on top of each other.

(the pieces are cut to different shapes, it’s not unlike the way in which a suit is made)

the way in which these bits are placed is important – but you can’t see it from the outside because they’re usually covered in a seamless cosmetic layer, or paint.

so if you could see inside the frame, you’d see (some of) the structural layers, and see how well they’d been glued together.

even if you have no experience of this sort of thing, if it looks like a mess, with frayed ends and peeling layers, then it’s not been done well.

(if you look at a suit, you can see the quality of the weave, you can see if the weave in both the sleeves is in the same direction, you can see some of the stitching. now imagine a suit where all this stuff is hidden, looking inside would tell you a lot)

I’ve not seen a hongfu frame up close, that I know of anyway.

It simply matters to me that I know a frame’s been made well. A well-made carbon frame doesn’t have bits of plastic tubing or massive blobs of dried black glue inside it. If I bought a cheapy off ebay -and under £200 is very cheap indeed- I’d want to know a bit more about it before riding it. Maybe I’m just being over cautious.

That’s fair enough, I think we all want to determine whether the Ebay, Hongfu etc frames are of a good enough quality as does the OP.

But your statement earlier refers to “some carbon frames” Are you wishing to imply that this refers to the frames from Ebay? You’ve not seen a Hongfu frame and you’ve not bought a carbon frame off ebay so which frames are these that you are referring to that have innards like a dogs dinner? It’s all very woolly.

Extremely cheap. We pay more than that when we buy then in 100’s at a time.
Either I am terrible at my job or those are shit.

More than likely built in the same place (or similar) so it must be the former.

I’m not saying who made them, just highlighting the differences in frames that you may not have the chance to see. A corner cutting move will be unlikely to be unique to one factory. I’m being woolly yes, draw from that what you will. If you want a cheap deal you may choose to take the risk, chances are all will be ok. All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t take that chance. I’ll butt out now )

I’m interested in them, i’ve looked a few times. I’m off to read weeksys link. If the On-one lurcher ever appears at the 456C price, i’ll probably go for that

My mate has one & its nice its been raced lots & is fine.

I’ve seen the inside of branded carbon bikes look like its made of hay, good job the sticker holds it all together

Extremely cheap. We pay more than that when we buy then in 100’s at a time.
Either I am terrible at my job or those are shit.

Can’t be far off, as a C456 is £299 after shipping, import duty, profit and VAT (but before it gets a sticker).

http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/chinese-carbon-29er-640919.html

50+ pages

The built up one on the last page (page 85) looks ten times better than an On One Lurker or 456.

My prediction:

In 5 years time we won’t be buying fancy alloy frames any more because carbon frames will be so cheap in comparison we would be mad to.

Road frames are being knocked out by the factories for $250 shipped, Planet-X are even selling road frames for £199 delivered in their sale.

These places must still be making some profit. Carbon bike frames are about to come of age….

It doesn’t mean we won’t be paying rip off prices for them though.

The built up one on the last page (page 85) looks ten times better than an On One Lurker or 456.

http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/chinese-carbon-29er-640919-85.html#post7191579

I had a 26″ one, was excellent, sold it, new owner stuffed it into a set of concrete steps at high speed and it broke.

I’d buy another one.

A swedish built one here:

Yes Was, thats the one

Interesting site, even comes with tube profile schematics!

That is lovely – how much for the frame? Anyone have an ebay link to that specific frame? mbr thread says it is a FM056

was – Member

My prediction:

In 5 years time we won’t be buying fancy alloy frames any more because carbon frames will be so cheap in comparison we would be mad to.

interesting.

my prediction:

(if only for balance)

in 5 years time CFRP frames will still be more expensive than aluminium frames.

(perhaps more so)

The energy required to produce the fibres will be more expensive, the labour required in the hand-layup process will be more expensive, and the tricky-to-recycle nature of composite materials will mean you’ll have to pay for the end-of-life-costs*.

(*basically a landfill tax)

but you may well be right.

🙂

That is lovely – how much for the frame? Anyone have an ebay link to that specific frame? mbr thread says it is a FM056

Its an “open mold” frame so a few factories do them. Best to get on skype with them and ask for a price in the exact finish / paint you want. Remember to negotiate if you’ve seen it cheaper elsewhere 🙂

http://dengfubikes.com/product.asp?id=37&classid=23
http://www.e-hongfu-bikes.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=291

interesting.

my prediction:

(if only for balance)

in 5 years time CFRP frames will still be more expensive than aluminium frames.

(perhaps more so)

The energy required to produce the fibres will be more expensive, the labour required in the hand-layup process will be more expensive, and the tricky-to-recycle nature of composite materials will mean you’ll have to pay for the end-of-life-costs*.

(*basically a landfill tax)

but you may well be right.

I know nothing about the energy cost of fibres vs hydroformed alloy tubes, but do also think we should be thinking about end of life costs.

An old alloy frame is maybe worth a few pence to weigh in and get recycled (at the moment) but a carbon frame is as you say landfill.

At the moment AFAIK there is no such accountability for bikes like there is with some other consumer products.

Trek (and someone else) are doing a carbon recycling programme now.

The only carbon frame I would trust would be one from one of the major players like Trek, for example, with a huge R&D division and computer modelling of the laying up/forming process. Riding a cheapo frame is like cheap insurance – the only time you realise it’s no good is after the crash!

a huge R&D division and computer modelling of the laying up/forming process

and you know that the factories producing these frames don’t have this?

They may be the same factories that Trek uses in some cases.

Interesting site, even comes with tube profile schematics!

They also make specialized! 😆

They may be the same factories that Trek uses in some cases

It may well be made in the same factory, but I know about costing a product and how goods are designed down to a pricepoint – you only get what you pay for in this world.

The only carbon frame I would trust would be one from one of the major players like Trek, for example, with a huge R&D division and computer modelling of the laying up/forming process. Riding a cheapo frame is like cheap insurance – the only time you realise it’s no good is after the crash!

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/519852863/2012_new_mtb_frames_FM056.html

Scroll down to the bottom, there are photos of them “testing” the frames.

Hong Fu also honour the warranty and replace the frames if they break (which isn’t often) if you have a look through that MTBR thread.

That one above is really nice. Internal cable routing too.

What is the geometry like compared to common 29ers?

Have a look through that thread, there is all the info you need on there including geometry and specs.

So what does a recycled carbon frame become? A high end new carbon product or just some kind of chopped up filler material? (I really don’t know so hoping someone can tell me).

I’ve been to foundries and seen the piles of relatively unprocessed scrap metal waiting to go back in the pot to make a new high end product. Admittedly there is quite a lot of energy in this process, which is why a lot of the major aluminium smelters are in places with hydro or geothermal electric.

what does a recycled carbon frame become?

chopped up filler material