FarEast factories finally trying to replicate LW wheels?

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jrccomponents
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by jrccomponents

Got a request on LinkedIn while ago from the director of DengFu. Had spoken to him one of the last times i visited southern China.

Out of nosiness I visited their website to see what their "hot selling product" was these days and came across 1 piece wheels.
http://dengfubikes.com/CARBON_WHEELS/238.html

Thought i'd share it here because there seems to be absolutely nothing on any forums about them and theyre the first one piece wheel I know of coming out of the Far east (unless you want to argue equinox or sth similar). Guess they must be brand new.
They also seem to have jumped on the NSW bandwagon putting grooves in their brake surface.

Game changer or flop? Thoughts?
The weight isn't competitive compared to Standard III at approx 1250grams for tubular (claimed weight) but there could be close to 200grams to come off of that with better internal. They seem to be using dt 350's at present which are total tanks at almost 400grams per set.

Listed on aliexpress for $1250~ per set
Last edited by jrccomponents on Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Wookski
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by Wookski

Dear god who would want to be a crash test dummy to save a couple of $

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jrccomponents
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by jrccomponents

Wookski wrote:
Sat Jan 20, 2018 11:46 pm
Dear god who would want to be a crash test dummy to save a couple of $
This was pretty much my thinking exactly but wanted to stay neutral and see if anyone had any experience with them :P

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853guy
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by 853guy

Wookski wrote: Dear god who would want to be a crash test dummy to save a couple of $
+1

With all due respect to the good folks at DengFu, I personally prefer my jaw being attached to my face.

I mean, they may be good. They may be great. But the reason I'll be riding LW on my next bike is that history shows a lot of people have already done a lot of miles on them, and as far as I know none of them are taking their food intravenously.

Good luck to DengFu. And anyone who's willing to take the, er... plunge.

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C36
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by C36

1250g (530+730) from the website no?


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jrccomponents
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by jrccomponents

C36 wrote:
Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:08 am
1250g (530+730) from the website no?
My apologies, I can't count.

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Fixie82
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by Fixie82

These look very similar (the same) to the wheels Spaziale Compositi have been showing off on Instagram for a little while now. You can even see the brake track grooves on them

Image

They look interesting, and could be quite good but at 23mm wide with 15mm internal I'd give them a pass just based off that.


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Lelandjt
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by Lelandjt

I don't see a price. Too heavy (clincher) to interest me but if they were 1150g(ish) and under $1500 I'd be intrigued.

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by 2old4this

Competition is good. But why would one buy replicas if the original ones are on discount now? I can find tubular disc ones for as low as €3200 (and some sites are still letting you buy them -VAT, if you buy them from the US.)

Wookski
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by Wookski

If you want LW buy LW. If you want weird mad fibre copies to match your “super rad open mould everyone else is a sucker” frame then good luck and say hi to your dentist for me.

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by liam7020

Brilliant - I'm interested! I've used a wide variety of open mould rims and frames for everything from cyclocross to mountain decents in Mallorca to the Tour of Flanders sportive (x 3 times) without even the hint of a problem. These Dengfu wheels are looking good!
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jrccomponents
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by jrccomponents

Fixie82 wrote:
Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:53 am
These look very similar (the same) to the wheels Spaziale Compositi have been showing off on Instagram for a little while now. You can even see the brake track grooves on them

Image

They look interesting, and could be quite good but at 23mm wide with 15mm internal I'd give them a pass just based off that.
Mind blown! Theyre the same alright...just spaziale have better internals...and are 3x the price. I guess the question here is whether its an oem production or if dengfu copied the design. I'd bet on the former given the fact that their website also has cloned edelhelfer bottle cages. Im guessing the design for the cages must not have copyright but still not cool imo.

Thats the power of marketing to a tee I guess :smartass:

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bura
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by bura

Wookski wrote:
Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:52 am
If you want LW buy LW. If you want weird mad fibre copies to match your “super rad open mould everyone else is a sucker” frame then good luck and say hi to your dentist for me.
Utter nonsense. Should be "if you can buy LW,buy LW" .
What is weird about those wheels?
Mad Fibre? Where are they? What happened?
So you need to have people testing for you hundred thousands of miles before you decide to buy a product? Sure only if you have the cash. The success of Farsports wheels which were heavily criticized years ago will teach you where the wind is blowing from. Same with Gigantex wheels.
Jure Berk who is "working" on a wheel set ,will do any better because he produces in Europe? May be , may be not. But those premature comments about any new Chinese product aren't even funny anymore.
Dislike the title of the OP ,too.
Had Mad Fibre any comment of their wheels like that ,who asked : US companies finally trying to replicate LW wheels?
Kuota Kom Evo
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111825&p=955235#p955235" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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jrccomponents
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by jrccomponents

[/quote]

Dislike the title of the OP ,too.
Had Mad Fibre any comment of their wheels like that ,who asked : US companies finally trying to replicate LW wheels?
[/quote]

Why do you dislike the title? Lets call a spade a spade, its replicating the technology regardless of whether you think thats for good or bad. If people like lightweight, lew, reynolds, madfiber hadnt started do it do you think factories in China would think its viable without any prior analytics? I think not..

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by jrccomponents

And as for your comments about Jure, no i dont think its a plus that hes in Europe, i think its a plus that he's got exceptional craftsmanship. I do think that he has also gotten inspiration from prior wheelsets though and im sure he wouldnt deny that, call it what you want inspiration, replication, tailoring, improving...

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