Weight Weenies

anyone with a positive or negative experience with alibaba.com.........offering "pinarello" TT frame/fork for about $900

txs

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I would rather trust my money on velobuild.com. They have a few TT frames that look quite good for the money

Alibaba is an online marketplace. What you have to be careful of is dealing with shady vendors. I'm sure there are good ones and bad ones, but I wouldn't say that all vendors on there are bad.

what a strange choice (of appropriate name) alibaba .......... and the 40 thieves , it has a worse reputation for scams than western union !

latman wrote:what a strange choice (of appropriate name) alibaba .......... and the 40 thieves , it has a worse reputation for scams than western union !

completely disagree. beside ali baba who is the poor guy in the story and has nothing to do with the thieves
I have purchased several parts from alibaba as well as from aliexpress (their sister company) and everything went all right.
On alibaba you can use their escrow service and the money will be paid to the seller after you confirm receipt of the goods
and on aliexpress you pay with your CC and funds are getting to the seller again after your confirmation of receipt.
Never use WU or Bank TT transfer.
For me both mentioned sites are as safe as eBay.

latman wrote:what a strange choice (of appropriate name) alibaba .......... and the 40 thieves , it has a worse reputation for scams than western union !

Alibaba used to be a website for traders only, but then it turned out in what's today.

Please

The chinese frames are not copies of "real" frames.... they are their own designs. Possibly with the exception of Chinarellos, but I have not examined them closely.

I suppose there could be junk out there but the stuff I have bought has been pretty good to excellent quality. I have bought directly from a "manufacturer" (which is actually a first level wholesale/retail outfit), from the same type of outfit but through a group buy coordinator (Velobuild), and from a US company that imports and warranties parts from China.

All purchases have gone well. Of course you should do your reasearch on the firm before sending money.

eric wrote:The chinese frames are not copies of "real" frames.... they are their own designs. Possibly with the exception of Chinarellos, but I have not examined them closely .

A friend of mine bought a fake "Time RXRS " and his sister a fake "cervelo S5 " both arrived (thats always good) with "costelo" headsets .....

http://cyclingyong.en.made-in-china.com ... Frame.html

they have no design ideas of their own , only copying skills IMO

There are blatant ripoff frames (which are NOT recommended) and then there are open mold frames the likes of which are sold through velobuild / hongfu/dengfu/flyxii/etc. Those have proven more or less through mass anecdotal evidence to be quite sturdy and are their own designs, albeit inspired by brand-name bikes.

sorry, didnt mean to start an international war of words. it's just when you see the same pinarello graal tt frame at 10c on the dollar, you have to ask is it real. i think i will just buy a stradalli tt frame, but i will never pay the outrageous prices that the major bike manufactures are asking.......especially when their getting the frame from the exact place the alibaba.com suppliers are. hopefully in 3-5 years people will have completely stopped paying $5-8k for a tt frame which should be $1-2k.

It's all good It's obviously not going to be real, those prices undercut dealer pricing so I really doubt they'll be real. I'm not a big fan of those chinese clones either. But from what i've heard the fm066sl and fm098 are some pretty slick rides...

not paying outrageous markups is why I love team sponsorships

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