My beef with November Bicycles

[snookanglr]

I thought this was very well handled by November and if you look into them you'll see that they appear to be good, trustworthy guys and that's why I would buy their wheels.

[KWalker]

Thanks, KWalker. I thought you had a set and was wondering how you were getting along with them. They are on my radar.

I don't really have any firm complaints. They build a stiff wheel, feel pretty fast, and are decent in cross-winds. Their torque response feels closer to an Enve than a Zipp, but its something that is easy to get used to and something that every deep wheel has issues with if the wind is strong enough. Braking isn't too great in the wet, but its not the worst either. I raced and rode them almost all Spring and Summer on an almost daily basis since I was too lazy to change pads and I never felt as if they were bad at anything in particular. Even the longer, steeper descents around here didn't really heat the rims up a ton. I raced a lot of 25 MPH+ races with them last year and they never skipped a beat. Would recommend them at the price point in a heart beat, and quite honestly even over the more expensive offerings.

[boysa]

Great information. Thank you kindly.

[SirHustlerEsq]

Thanks, KWalker. I thought you had a set and was wondering how you were getting along with them. They are on my radar.

I don't really have any firm complaints. They build a stiff wheel, feel pretty fast, and are decent in cross-winds. Their torque response feels closer to an Enve than a Zipp, but its something that is easy to get used to and something that every deep wheel has issues with if the wind is strong enough. Braking isn't too great in the wet, but its not the worst either. I raced and rode them almost all Spring and Summer on an almost daily basis since I was too lazy to change pads and I never felt as if they were bad at anything in particular. Even the longer, steeper descents around here didn't really heat the rims up a ton. I raced a lot of 25 MPH+ races with them last year and they never skipped a beat. Would recommend them at the price point in a heart beat, and quite honestly even over the more expensive offerings.

+1. I have a set of 34s with T11s that I've put 3000 miles on since the middle of August and absolutely love them, no regrets at all. I plan to get a set of 52s when I get a dedicated crit bike, November tolerates me in email, answer questions, has a sense of humor, and the most attractive crash replacement of them all. I was happy to dump-off what was left of my Zipps after a crash and move on to the Rail. I thought long and hard over it and the reality was that I could get two sets of Rails for the price of a Zipp or Enve, and I get an affordable crash-replacement offering.

[ProEvoSLTeamHighMod]

It won't surprise me if this gets moderated, but I'll say the irony is amazing in how November has fanboys defending them as somehow better than "China Carbon"...

If having US based "distribution" and a dude who inspects your china carbons to make sure they look OK (for a 2nd time perhaps?) before sending them to you is something valuable in this industry, then yeah, it's an awesome company..
I have personally seen their frames fail under completely normal and very light use, their rims fail, and other issues like poor cable routing designs... I have a few regular customers who are die-hard fans, and I will say that November offers excellent support, I have been impressed with that, although nothing amazingly beyond what other good brands in the industry do.

Your products may be "your molds" but they are still being made in China. That a person in the US inspects them thoroughly does not make them better made - it makes them better QC'd - and most reputable "china carbon" wheel/rim manufacturers actually offer pretty good warranty support in the case of such issues.

I have seen brand new never touched china carbons with cracks - be that november or other brands.

I think it's fine and good to point out that there are certain "china carbon" brands which are truly awful.
Also excellent to defend IP and the obvious deceit of counterfeit Zipp, Pinarello, etc.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves - the "Rail" and other similar wider rims are simply a realization that Zipp was onto something and now we're going to design as close to that as possible without infringing on patents, and then claim marginal benefits compared to "competition" that is doing the same thing.

There's a lot of praise in this thread about being honest... let's be honest. It's re-branded China carbon. And I'm local and I work on your products regularly... This isn't being an internet bully, it's being honest about what things are or aren't. There is nothing wrong with "china carbon" - I rock it on some of my bikes and it's totally fine. But don't pretend it to be on par with products that set the standards...

[NovemberDave]

ProEvoSLTeamHighMod -

We can't be honest about what's not honest - our rims are neither made in China (Taiwan - there is a difference), nor re-branded. If contract manufacturing equals rebranding, then that's a label that applies to the vast majority of cycling products - rims and frames. When a frame gets sold as an FM-066 but is also repainted and sold by another company as their frame, that's rebranding. You could say that any open mold stuff is re-branded. We started out with open mold rims and frames, and were perfectly up front about it unlike a WHOLE lot of other brands. We haven't done anything with open molds in a couple of years. Saying that Rails are re-brands is totally inaccurate and is the same as saying that HED, Bontrager, and Specialized are re-brands. It's not accurate.

HED also deserves credit for the wide rim revolution, at least as much as Zipp. Our shapes are, at close inspection, quite different from any Zipp that preceded them, although the Firestrike shape moves in our direction. Let me make it abundantly clear right here and now that I think there is zero chance that we directly influenced the Firestrike shape. We may have fit on something that they also found, that's as far as I will go with that. But every product is influenced by things that have preceded it, that's just the way the world works.

Since every Rail every made is still under warranty I'd assume we know about any issues that have ever been. There have been some, of course there have been. We deal with them as quickly and completely as possible. I don't believer that any frame of ours has failed under light use, plain and simple. I know of two that have been hit by cars, one that was driven into a building, and two that were crashed on multiple occasions before having some problems. And I know a heck of a lot about the history of both of those crashed frames that the owners didn't necessarily assume I'd know or find out. One "spontaneously exploded" when a 32t cassette was used with a short-cage rear derailleur, which ripped the derailleur clean off, and then the derailleur smashed into and cracked the seat stay.

We also know of one guy who wasn't happy with the under-BB cable route, which wasn't nearly as bad as other frames we've seen from the majors, but still we tried hard to help. That's one issue that happened three years ago. I also know of one that was driven into a building in 2011 and is still ridden today. We've definitely warrantied stuff that didn't need to be warrantied - my rear 52 has a rim that we replaced for a customer purely for aesthetic reasons, which I don't believe many, if any, others would have done.

We try for 100% customer satisfaction, and I know we fail. Sometimes you can't win, but we still try. If our customer support stops shy of "amazingly beyond what other good brands in the industry do," then I think we're doing pretty well although we will keep trying to be better the whole way through the chain.

If we have any say in it, your post won't get moderated. Quite frankly I don't know why you think it would. You've said some things in a way that I wouldn't, but I'm also representing my brand which is my life's work. If we live by the sword of honesty, we risk dying by it. But so much of the problem with what goes on in bikes is that people expect things to be manipulated, moderated, curated, shaded, etc. People assume that we do the same all the time - this thread started with us being accused of moderating a comment, which we quite simply didn't and haven't ever done.

[BocoNerd]

It won't surprise me if this gets moderated, but I'll say the irony is amazing in how November has fanboys defending them as somehow better than "China Carbon"...

It wouldn't be surprising...because it is full of weird nonsense?

November is and has been uniquely transparent from their open mold days through the design of the Rails, the ups and downs of frame endeavors, and all the subsequent testing.

[MarkTwain]

The noobie multis who are posting, please, give it a rest. It's really not a good look.

The man has posted on his experiences with a brand. Any other thread and it's feedback. Not sure why posting it in here suddenly makes it nonsense.

[BocoNerd]

The noobie multis who are posting, please, give it a rest. It's really not a good look.

What does that even mean?

Not sure why posting it in here suddenly makes it nonsense.

The nonsense I referred to was ProEvo's flat out mischaracterization (putting it charitably) of November's product as "re-branded" "china carbon", and the claim to have seen "brand new never touched" November wheels with cracks and failed frames, not the OP.

[afalts]

He means you (BocoNerd), SirHustlerEsq, & snookanglr appear as if they are from November and registered just to defend this thread. All reg'd Nov 12th and this is the only thread you've posted in.

Not helping November's case. Especially considering the same writing style to NovemberDave.

[BocoNerd]

He means you (BocoNerd), SirHustlerEsq, & snookanglr appear as if they are from November and registered just to defend this thread. All reg'd Nov 12th and this is the only thread you've posted in.

Not helping November's case. Especially considering the same writing style to NovemberDave.

First time I've ever been accused of being a sock. I doubt that the November guys have ever been accused of that. First time for everything I guess. Maybe I should change my writing style to unhinged Finnish translation...

I suspect we all got here the same way. November themselves pointed out this thread on their Facebook page. They didn't ask or imply that anyone should come post here, they asked if anyone else had a beef with them.

I can speak only for myself. I've lurked these forums for a long time, but having read the original November post, having had great experiences with November and being an IP lawyer I was finally motivated to quit lurking.

Everyone was a new poster at some point. Admins can easily verify origin IPs for suspected sock accounts, unless you are worried that in addition to creating new accounts and new emails we all also have nothing better to do than selecting random TOR exit nodes.....

[vdrey]

If the admins check IP addresses, they should also check them against known exit nodes.

I think there are websites that do that.

Sent from my OG Moto X

[NovemberDave]

This is when the clean rider BEGS for the piss test. Please check this every way allowed by law.

We linked to this thread twice on FB, and tweeted it as well. We saw over 1000 out clicks to this thread just from FB (which is about 4x the number that came to our site from it). Of course some people are going to register and post support for us. Something motivated each person on this board to make their first post.

If we had anything to hide on this entire issue, we would have tried to bury it instead of promoting it to over 15000 people who follow us on FB and Twitter.

The only names under which I have ever posted on any cycling boards, ever, are November Dave, NovemberDave, and dkri. It's just depressing as hell that people take it for granted that a bike company, or any company, would pull that kind of crap. I used to get bummed when people asked me what our wheels REALLY weigh, you know, because claimed weight doping and all.

[rmerka]

This thread has gotten tiresome and pointless (just like my post ). In for the lock!

[Tinea Pedis]

Agreed.