eBay Chinese replica team kits – any experience??

Really? How cheap are you guys? A Fox jersey, at full price can be had for £35, less in a sale.

The lack of willingness on this forum to actually put anything back into the industry that supports the sport you all clearly love never fails to amaze me!

Really? How cheap are you guys? A Fox jersey, at full price can be had for £35, less in a sale.

The lack of willingness on this forum to actually put anything back into the industry that supports the sport you all clearly love never fails to amaze me!

Much as I agree with you on not buying fake stuff, that has to be the weakest argument ever. They’re companies, not charities, they exist to extract the absolute maximum of money from the sport!

one way of doing that would be to charge massive prices for garments and then convince folk only “cheap” folk would buy the [ near] identical product for a fraction of the price and that it would be wrong to rip them off as they continue to rip you off.

Yes they do, hence me referring to them as an industry. Its not a weak arguement in the slightest however. Sports are driven forward by the industry behind them. If everyone bought fake stuff, they would be no new genuine stuff.

Cycling is enjoying a massive boom at the moment, which is great for the industry, and as a result for us as cyclists. It means loads of new product for us to enjoy. People riding knock off chinese frames and wearing knock off clothing are doing nothing to help develop the sport they enjoy.

Know what. I’m going to pop around to my local bike shop and stick £50 through the door.

I care that much. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The knockoff is cheaper because someone else did the hard work at the R&D stage. Copying is easier than creating.

Thats without getting into the fact that the norm is a product that often looks the same, but being a cheap knockoff is actually a far lower quality.

And again, to use the example of a Fox jersey, £35, less if you don’t mind last seasons one. Come on, thats like wearing a knockoff Nike T shirt.

People are so soon to slag of the cycle industry for taking money from people, but that is the aim of all businesses isn’t it?

I bet your wages (that you spend on knock of Chinese gear) comes from a “money extracting company” of some sort or another.

It means loads of new product for us to enjoy

Speak for yourself it means it is harder to get 26 er stuff and 9 speed as they force me to spend money on stuff i do not want

they do this not to make my life better but to make them money.

I care about them as much as they care about me

duntstick – totally irrelevant. Noone has mentioned bike shops. All the stuff mentioned is available online etc.

Bad trolling going nowhere.

Junkyard – loads of 26 stuff out there, and Shimano etc make 9 speed, it doesnt say XT etc on it anymore, but then 9 speed is old now. Thats like complaining Porsche don’t make cars with 200bhp anymore.

For the record I do own a 9speed 26inch wheeled bike. And have lamented the lack of new high end mechs for it, but I understand why.

it is dead because the industry made it dead not because users asked for it
The orange 5 barely changed in a decade as did the gears so why upgrade? Now we upgrade because we cannot replace/repair as they made it obsolete.
If you want to be loyal to them they they are delighted with your choices as that is what makes them money and that is the main thing they GAS about
I feel no loyalty to them at all nor to any company

I do like Hope though

Have to agree to disagree there I think. I do see your point, but everything gets pushed forward. I feel it is better to have the extra range from 10 and 11 speed, it allows for simpler drive chains, love 1x. There is definately stuff out there thats industry driven, but I think there is alot of stuff thats come along lately thats absolutely improved the machines we ride.

I think its fair to say that a hell of a lot of people want development in whatever they are into, be it bikes, cars or computers. Otherwise we would all be driving Model Ts, gaming on Atari 2600s and riding penny farthings.

That actually sounds pretty cool.

depends some of it is brilliant over the penny farthing
STI gears
Hydraulic brakes
Suspension that works

Some of it is just stuff to get us to buy stuff to make them money
wheel size
more gears
bigger telly
Bigger RAM on a computer etc
having to use a front mech is not a massive faff IMHO

Road bikes wont be 1 x whatever anytime soon
Better possible, life changing unlikely.

Exactly, better. Better is good! Of course a good 26inch wheeled XC bike with 3×9 is still gonna be loads of fun, bikes are fun! But gimme a 1×11 29er XC bike all day long, because its better!

I am not writing the older stuff at all, but I am all for development as well. I do see where you are coming from though, its not life changing, as long as people are riding its all good.

Agree about road bikes, but there is plenty going on there as well, 2×11 rapidly becoming the normal over 3x systems. Disc brakes are happening in a big way. I agree a front mech is not a big hassle, but as a lover of a simple bike I have not run one on a MTB for a while now.

so after all the tangents why is IP theft a good thing?

It has become a wider debate eh?

So, to those who appear to hate all companies, what they make and everything they stand for; given the opportunity to press a great big “kill them, kill them all, now!” button, that wipes all ‘money grabbing companies’ off the face of the earth.

What are you going to ride?
Where are you going to get it?
And what will you be wearing while you ride?

davidy – Member
Really? How cheap are you guys? A Fox jersey, at full price can be had for £35, less in a sale.

£35 for a T-shirt….sorry, ‘jersey’

I like to think i’m not cheap with things that matter (insurance, vehicles, essential home appliances, boring but grown up stuff like that)….or when spending a bit more of my money gets me a noticeably better product that will increase my enjoyment of the hobby….but the example you posted here makes me laugh.

Hand on heart i can tell you that i will enjoy todays ride whether i am wearing a Fox ‘jersey’…or a tesco T-shirt…or an Ebay chinese knock-off…and that wearing one of those items over another will not add to or detract from the ride….because its not important.

What is important to me is getting out on the bike having spent as little money as possible so that i have more left to spend on the other things i like too….£35 for a T-shirt is faintly ridiculous, particularly when it will get wet, muddy sweaty, oily etc etc….so if i can kit myself in riding gear cheaply from Lidl, Hong Kong or wherever then i’m happy and i dont feel guilty because there are plenty of folk who do honestly believe their Troy Lee shorts or Fox T-shirt makes them a better rider and they’re happy to pay the premium for this…

Go to chain reaction or start cycles and search for shorts or jerseys. Organise results by biggest discount.

Just had a great idea, when the PDF version of Singletrack arrives I’m going to print it out on crap paper and I’ll post you a copy for £1 who’s in?

Haha, haven’t bought the mag in over a year…. yet another product I decided I could do without, funnily enough life goes on.

Has anyone used This[/url] company?

Well said Deviant, couldn’t agree more.

you still can’t get away from the fact that the Chinese kit is very good quality for the money, and for the larger guy it is one of the only places to get sizes that are actually big enough and for well.

Just had a great idea, when the PDF version of Singletrack arrives I’m going to print it out on crap paper and I’ll post you a copy for £1 who’s in?

Just share it over P2P
What’s all this £1 nonsense? If you could also do it as a .mobi it would be good 😉

gimme a 1×11 29er XC bike all day long, because its better

Possibly 😉

why is IP theft a good thing?

You get the stuff for cheap
I have to say i find it quite amusing that folk will defend the [ often massive] overpricing of things as ok but think its immoral to buy the [almost]same thing for less. IMHO neither is morally defensible and both inevitable in capitalism . Neither company has morals and they are all doing it to make money

I will be on a massive straw man eunuch whilst you will be on a high horse.

You cannot beat a good quality Chinese Sweat Shop! 😉

Most garments are made in the Far East with a high % Mark up, these garments no doubt come from the same manufacturer but for a fraction of the price!

Compromising safety through purchasing counterfeit products is a different matter altogether.

I think there’s quite a lot of doubt about that.