Fake Britain – carbon bike parts

Just saw this on my rare viewing of daytime TV.
Looks like there is (was?) an ebay seller selling fake FSA carbon parts.
One MTBer on there had his bars snap while JRA, broke his wrist.
Upon investigation FSA found that the bits were fake and there’s quite a lot of it about.
Quite a concern for those buying bits off ebay?
They showed how you can tell a genuine FSA item, from the UV revealed “watermark”. Didn’t say whether they had tracked down the seller.
There must be other brand fakes out there though. I is scared.

I think Windwave originally found out about this when the ‘warranty’ returns started rolling in…

I guess it’s the risk you run with buying from Ebay.

One way to avoid it would be to buy from reputable retailers.

knock off carbon parts what a shock, awaits first request for a link to the seller and the price list 😉

Saw something on Friday morning tv about fake helmets as well.

Bought via Amazon for not that much less than RRP. Failed the safety tests spectacularly.

Interesting, I don’t buy carbon bits off eBay myself for this reason.

Funny enough I once stopped to ask a rider if I could help – because he was looking confusedly at his bike beside the trail.

“Not unless you’ve got a spare handlebar.”

His FSA bar had snapped cleanly beside the brake lever – this was years ago, but then my mate’s FSA bar (legit) snapped too. And an FSA carbon seatpost I got off the bay quickly wore through to the internal metal core. That one might have been a fake but it was six or seven years ago.

Apparently the carbon handle bars “..would make it much lighter and perform better”
Course they will!

I can put the programme on youtube if anyone’s interested.

motorbike helmets too on friday jam bo some of them were shocking.

saw the start of that but had to go out. the grind test looked like it was going to interesting…

I assume every branded carbon part on ebay is fake.

So I either buy stuff I have confidence is going to be okay (normally direct from the carbon maker who is not putting any fake logos on) or from a UK store and make sure the parts check out when they get here.

eBay is full of knock-off carbon, must be the majority of the branded stuff now. Look for sellers who only sell £300+ SMP Carbon saddles for £80 a go. They just buy them from AliExpress and they come with fake packaging so the people who buy them probably don’t even realise.

I bought a fake 3T fork off ebay, but I realised before the seller sent it and got a refund. He seemed genuinely surprised though.

but I realised before the seller sent it and got a refund. He seemed genuinely surprised though.

Always look surprised when caught out….

His FSA bar had snapped cleanly beside the brake lever – this was years ago, but then my mate’s FSA bar (legit) snapped too. And an FSA carbon seatpost I got off the bay quickly wore through to the internal metal core. That one might have been a fake but it was six or seven years ago.

So we cant really blame the Fakers for the failures – If you reverse engineer something that is flawed to start with then that’s what you end up with. Rubbish in, Rubbish out. I blame FSA for not building something worth copying

FSA, Ritchey and 3T seem the most common “fake” parts on ebay. Most of the time the sellers say it is a copy and most of the buyers just want something cheap with a brand name on so more often than not you know what you are getting in to… and it is up to you if you trust it!

Always look surprised when caught out….

Yeh, maybe.

He was also selling a real Cervelo branded one and he changed the description when he relisted it, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I’ve seen a good number of ‘fake’ bike frames and parts come through my workshops, some new but out of alignment, some broken after failures or crashes, including some fake “big name” branded frames.

When we’ve inspected them internally using torches and dental mirrors the insides of the frames have been absolutely shocking with bits of ??? composites, string, paper, bladder, filler, epoxy glue, even straw and fibreglass in there

When we’ve inspected them internally using torches and dental mirrors the insides of the frames have been absolutely shocking with bits of ??? composites, string, paper, bladder, filler, epoxy glue, even straw and fibreglass in there

What did you expect to find?

Epoxy is the resin, the ‘plastic’.
The bladder is needed to consolidate the laminates, the inside of the frame is pressurised and the outside is compressed to squeeze out the excess epoxy to maximise the fiber to resin ratio and minimise excess weight.
Fibeglass is often used as it’s stronger and more durable in certain aplications than carbon fibre.

what did you find when you inspected genuine frames that had broken?

What did you expect to find?

Epoxy is the resin, the ‘plastic’.You don’t expect to see great big lumps of it hardened onto the inside of a frame, or chunks of the bladder caught up in it or simply left inside the frame though.

EBay, China, Fake.

Three words that generally go together.

It’s the same with almost all products, bike or otherwise. Problem is they are convincing and many actually work “OK” for a bit, like phone chargers, phones, even bike lights & components. It’s only when they go wrong you find out how poorly and dangerously they’ve been built, and just hope you survive the failure.

A lot of industry in China is built around making copies of things very cheap and selling back to the west, and there is no way to enforce international copyrights and patents there.

That’s http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04v62f5/fake-britain-series-5-episode-16 on iPlayer, btw.

I’ve looked at buying carbon F&F a few times from ebay but always bawked. Funnily I’d NEVER buy carbon bars from ebay. Always Easton anyway.

That’s http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04v62f5/fake-britain-series-5-episode-16 on iPlayer, btw

Yep, it’s the first section so you don’t have to put up with the bit about fake sausages and pigeon breasts.

Cheers for that. Is interesting. As for real FSA bars snapping, well so can any bar, carbon or not. What the show makes a point of is they should pass the EU safety tests and FSA claim theirs do and test the fake ones in the programme which fail catastrophically in normal stresses. A genuine bar will more likely snap when crashing or some time after a big whack and likely in one spot, not multiple places at the same time.

What makes it more tricky on ebay is there are sellers who set up accounts to make them look like they are based in the UK, or resellers from the UK who buy Chinese fakes. It’s most likely it all comes from China as they are very good at making genuine looking copies, and very quickly. I worked for a mobile phone company where the Chinese would have fakes on the market before the real ones were even released as they get hold of prototypes and specs that are submitted to authorities, and the fakes really did look like the real deal.

Anyway, more disturbing is the fake sausages. Next they’ll be telling me bacon is fake! 😮

@thisisnotaspoon

you don’t expect to see big globs of actual epoxy glue (not resin impregnated into carbon fibre cloth) inside a frame, or bladders left in place, nor the other items I mentioned.

If you look inside a quality frame the carbon fibre should be very well finished internally, not very rough / lumpy / random pieces of torn cloth everywhere (i.e. off-cuts)

I’ve not seen quality carbon fibre cycle frame manufacturers using fibreglass as there would be no point, just adds weight and reduces strength. Its used by knock-off manufacturers because its cheap.

from Dan@windwave on twittet this am;

the day Fake Britain airs we get a FAKE FSA Plasma bar back with a massive crack, fortunately for the rider the bar didn’t completely fail

I live in Malaysia and have done for close to 8yrs, here FSA, Ritchey, Zipp, Giro, Time, Ridley, Pinarello, Colnago, SPesh, Chris Queen (really) can all be bought, campag wheels, etc.

Minefield….can of worms etc.

Even the shops here sell fake parts….(as replica).

Shiny

Just remember, they’re just generic carbon parts that they then put the fake manufacturers stickers on to make them more saleable.
I bought a what I thought was just a basic cheap carbon road frame/forks of ebay several years ago, I didn’t know it was a copy/mould of a Pinarello Prince until my mate told me.
The frame and myself are still in one piece, I have done around 4000 miles on it including racing.

Fakes/copys sometimes fail and so do big brand names products fail, its almost down to luck, but when buying anything carbon, just give it a very good check over before use, if you can.
There are far more pictures of brand name fails than fakes!

I’ve not seen quality carbon fibre cycle frame manufacturers using fibreglass as there would be no point, just adds weight and reduces strength. Its used by knock-off manufacturers because its cheap.

It doesn’t ‘reduce strength’ though (or in some cases even cost less), carbon fiber produces very rigid structures due to it’s stiffness, but glass can have a higher UTS. So parts that need to flex (like handlebars, seatposts or bike frames) will probably have some glassfiber in there to give it the required properties, 100% CFRP products tend to just snap.

fake fizik saddles are popular too. As are renthal stems, but with the latter they do them in better colours 😀

I went into my LBS a few weeks ago and in the workshop was a Cervelo in white with World Championship bands, full Zipp parts. Looked dead smart.

The whole lot was fake. A guy had bought it off ebay for about £2000 and taken it to the shop for something unrelated, can’t remember what. They’d picked up on it by being geeky – just little things like the rear mech cable exiting in the wrong place for that model and a few other little signs that only a real bike anorak would have picked up on. Once they dug a little deeper though, it all looked wrong. Model numbers not matching what the genuine item actually looked like, no serial numbers; it had knock off bars, stem, wheels…

About the only verifiable components were the Shimano Ultegra groupset.

The customer was devastated. Ebay didn’t want to know, the seller disappeared. The buyer had paid cash on collection so had no comeback at all.

fake sausages

Screw the fake carbon….What the ****??!?!?

Got some for my dog, he was devastated when he realised.

I went into my LBS a few weeks ago and in the workshop was a Cervelo in white with World Championship bands, full Zipp parts. Looked dead smart.

A guy had bought it off ebay for about £2000

Depending how old it was, that’s on the close end of a serious bargain. I know someone who tried to buy a “too good to be true” bargain recently and got scammed out of 6000 quid. Chances are if you see something too good to be true, it usually is. I had a Chinese carbon road frame and it was pretty much spot on but I didn’t get a fake, I got an open mould frame from a well regarded reseller.

eddie11 – Member

fake fizik saddles are popular too. As are renthal stems, but with the latter they do them in better colours
Isn’t there a different story behind all those split stems?
Doesn’t Renthal license the design from the ones you see on ebay?
Can’t remember the details, but that was the impression I got from other threads.

I’ve been in carbon places to visit where they were happily making rims with HED and Zipp written on them.
“You make for these people?” we would ask.
“No, just copy product for Chinese market”.

We walked.

I knew it was someone off here’s dog they were interviewing 😀

I’ve been in carbon places to visit where they were happily making rims with HED and Zipp written on them.
“You make for these people?” we would ask.
“No, just copy product for Chinese market”.

This is what really happened:

I’ve been in carbon places to visit where they were happily making rims with HED and Zipp written on them.
“You make for these people?” we would ask.
“No, just copy product for Chinese market-hang on, HEY are you that lead singer from the band REM?!!!”.

it’s en an issue in the bike trade for as long as I remember, mid to late nineties it was ritchey stuff and raceface bars were the first ones that seemed to flood the market, wtb greasguard headsets stick in my mid to and they were coming into our workshop on a regular basis and were wearig through steerers as they were so badly made.

2004-2006 it was fake king headsets and Thomson posts, the Thomson posts were so good that you had to pick them up and look inside as the internal profile was round not oval and they weighed a fair bit more.

Ive seen the results of a crashed Giro helmet which basically turned to dust on impact.