http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=121716358718&alt=web

30 quid?

Clearance looks good though I’ve messaged the seller to check.

Would you trust it? The thing making me consider it is that it’s a UK seller…

UK Seller?

Business seller information
TOMTOP TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
XueHua Li
G Zone 5/F, No.1 Exchange Square,huanan City, Pinghu, Longgang
518115 Shenzhen,Guangdong
China

Prob a drop shipper. If you value your teeth i’d say no

Ask yourself one question……………………how much do you like the look of your face?

As above, steer well away

Thankyou singletrack for preserving my good looks! Deep down I knew it was a bad idea, just needed telling so.

I bought a £40 quid one, although that link won’t open for me so I’ve no idea if it’s the same.
Seems well made. For the first few weeks I was checking it over at the start and end of every ride looking for cracks or soft spots but since it seems to be fine I’ve stopped doing it quite as much. Probably done 500 miles on the road/off road though so not much. Mainly been a turbo bike this winter.
Still, the cheap crud probably has zero quality control so I suspect that for every one that’s ok there will be dozens that are a bit shonky. I fully intend to replace them with a branded pair once the bike is spending a bit less time on the turbo.
At the end of the day it’s your face to risk. Don’t use my experience to tell you it will all be ok…

It’s your face

As they say

Just get it and test it properly before you use it.
Carbon is very cheap and so is the labour, that is why these sellers can sell them so cheap.
My £13 130g carbon handle bar has been fine for the last year/5500 miles and my £200 ebay carbon f/f road bike has not killed me in 5 years/thousands of miles and I race on it too.
Thousands of people all over the world use cheap Chinese carbon parts and have not died.

It was only a few years ago I read that Pinarello buy their top end frames for $50!

If it was being sold at double that price, would you still be as scared?!

“It was only a few years ago I read that Pinarello buy their top end frames for $50!”

as abraham lincoln famously said – “dont believe everything you read on the internet….”

I bought a cheap pair of carbon forks – about 90 quid…. now if you didnt know any better they would seem fine HOWEVER having ridden some well made carbon forks – the steerer on these carbon forks seemed soft/flexy under power and steering out of ruts….

sure enough when i removed the stem the weave was damaged down the length of the steerer from the flex.

replaced with some quality forks and have had no further issues.

test it properly before you use it.

How do you propose to do this fatigue testing?

How do you propose to do this fatigue testing?

Lend the bike to a mate for a few hours

Yeah. Don’t trust this far east carbon. All the real bike manufacturers have their stuff made in…..oh wait.

I reckon I can guarantee that not one person on this forum has any real clue of the structural differences between carbon made in one factory and another, nor a single idea of the quality control regimes in place at any of these places (no, marketing info doesn’t count!)Based on that, no one is able to actually tell you…

I bought one just to see what a £30 disc fork looked like.

They’re ok finish is nice, but tyre clearance is tight (30c CX PRO didn’t fit) and disc was limited to 160mm. Ultimately I sold it back on before I used it.

I’m quite tempted to get one an test it to destruction in jig at work.

@vdubber67

there are many assumptions that it all comes out of the same factories, but its not true, it doesn’t all come from the same countries either.

there is a wide variance in the manufacturing quality of carbon fibre, and its easy for punters to be taken in by the black aluminium 😉

generally:-

good quality carbon fibre manufacturing is done in taiwan, where there is a skilled and relatively expensive workforce; most Taiwanese factories are owned by long-established families or small companies, and their survival depends on their good reputation with overseas design & marketing brands. you also have larger manufacturers like Giant and Merida who do their CF in Taiwan.

cheaper carbon fibre manufacturing is done on mainland China, because labour costs and operating costs are lower, and there is less scrutiny of manufacturing quality due to the large scale of activity. there is also less protection of intellectual property on the mainland, so its easier to manufacture knock-offs and punt them out through Alibaba

if you’ve been involved with carbon fibre frame or products in a workshop environment, you will see a big difference in quality of branded products

you will also see inexpensive product from dubious sources with poor manufacturing quality – its easy to spot when you have a good look inside with a bright light and dental mirror and you start to spot the defects, thickness of layup, excess resin, debris left in situ after layup, bondo filler, the finishing quality of interface points (especially seat tube and cable guides), and more blunt measurement such as frame alignment.

I’ve dealt with lots of crashed, broken and warranty carbon fibre from many leading brands, as well as smaller brands, blanks and blatant fakes.

I couldn’t tell you which ‘factory’ a product comes from, but its not that hard to understand what you have in your hands when you know what to look for (by looking inside as the “skin” of filler/paint can hide many sins!), and to be able to tell a good quality product from a poor quality product.

I’ve had the interesting experience of being able to cut up damaged CF frames and forks and really look at the detail close up

its not cheap to manufacture good quality carbon fibre, if its too good to be true, it probably is!

“I’ve had the interesting experience of being able to cut up damaged CF frames and forks and really look at the detail close up”

Me too , cutting up an early failed carbon road frame from a large national chain sporting a former cyclists name…. was an interesting experiance – when normally id been taking bottom brackets out of scotts and giants for warrenty

esher shore – think you’re missing my point. I totally agree that there is a wide variation in quality in terms of carbon components. My point was that no-one on this forum is able to categorically determine exactly where anything is made, or what the level of quality is. Just because you’re paying more / less for something doesn’t equate to high/low standards. Using ‘my forks did this’ or ‘I bought cheap forks and they were great’ is nothing more than anecdotal evidence.

For the record I’ve worked with carbon fibre and associated materials in the aerospace and automotive industries for about the last 15 years, and currently look after quality on a global basis for one of the world’s largest pre-preg carbon manufacturers 😉

“For the record I’ve worked with carbon fibre and associated materials in the aerospace and automotive industries for about the last 15 years, and currently look after quality on a global basis for one of the world’s largest pre-preg carbon manufacturers “

i see a gap in the market for someone with your expertise in carbon quality……

For the price of them I could possbily get 2 and get one mech tested at work but if a 30mm tyre doesn’t fit that’s a no go for my 33m tyres + an inch of mud either side! Plus I suppose there’s no guarantee that the two would be identical..

So cheapest decent carbon CX fork?

no-one on this forum is able to categorically determine exactly where anything is made, or what the level of quality is

Which is precisely why many sensible people choose to delegate that decision to trusted manufacturers/retailers/importers/distributors. By buying from a reputable source (which yes, tends to cost more) you are protecting yourself from potentially buying something not made to the same standards. That doesn’t mean that every cheap no-name component is dodgy; it’s just that there’s no way of knowing.

I’m sure that some £30 carbon forks as a bargain, and just as good as much more expensive ones from trusted manufacturers. It’s just that you can’t tell which is which.

It was only a few years ago I read that Pinarello buy their top end frames for $50!

This shows you what the word brand means

Pinarello can charge more because we believe that have systems in place to ensure that the frame is made to a good standard. We also know if the worse came to the worst they are a legal entity in Europe who that one could take legal action against

As a slight aside, do most big brands use a dry lay-up then? Or is this cheap fork like a garage effort and likely to be a wet lay-up?