How Good are These Frames?

JIMZAMP has seen some carbon road and MTB frames on e-bay and wants to know if they are a good buy or what problems he might have if he was to go for one of them. Here are our thoughts on un-named frames, and other bike equipment.

Question:
DO YOU HAVE ANY FEEDBACK ON THE CARBON BIKE FRAMES FROM ASIA THAT ARE FOR SALE ON EBAY.THEY SELL FOR 300 FOR A ROAD FRAME AND 600 FOR A MOUNTAIN.LOOK GREAT IN THE PICTURE BUT ARE FROM A NO NAME SUPPLIER.CHECK THEM OUT AT EBAY UNDER FRAMES SELLER ***********.THANKS JIMZAMP.

Hi JIMZAMP,

I have looked at the seller you mention, but they don’t seem to have anything for sale at the moment, but I have found other sellers with no-name carbon frames at a very reasonable price and they look very nice!

I would say if you want to take a chance and buy one that is your decision, but there are a few things that you should consider before you part with your money. This also goes for other bike parts as there are quite a few handle bars, stems seat pins and other things on the market.

The problems with un-known parts are that you don’t know who or where they were made and more importantly you don’t know how well they have been made. Carbon is a tricky material to work with and when it comes to frames it can be made more cheaply by not using as strong a weave or not using as many layers of the carbon as they should, which makes a weaker frame which may fail under the pressure of riding.

You might think “well if the frame cracks I can send it back!” Yes but can you? Does the supplier take returns and if they do will they replace it and when? Then if it brakes while you are riding you might be lucky and be able to stop before any damage, but what if it’s on a fast descent or amongst heavy traffic?

You can say “branded frames can brake too!” yes it does happen, but you know where they are, you bought the frame from a shop, so you can go back to them and the main thing is that these companies have insurance for this sort of thing and (usually) they are very good about any frame failures that can happen.

I hope this helps?