Carbon handlebar/stem/seatpost from ebay?

[golden path]

Anyone can get these things made and whack their brand on them, and sell them. No standards, dubious specs and materials, no accountability.

 

[andrew9]

When I built my wife's bike up I thought I would try some of these carbon bits on ebay. I went for Hylix stuff as it seems to have some brand recognition when talking about ebay carbon bits. The reviews are pretty good, some people swear by them.

This seat post has around 200km of riding on it being used by my wife. Cracked around 2/3 of the way around. Very disappointed, awaiting a reply from the seller.

That looks like it might be an alloy head on a carbon post? If so, you could expect some movement between the two parts and it may just be a paint crack over the glue?

 

[allroundgoodguy]

What we have found in dealing with Chinese manufactures in other areas will hold true with carbon products.

You will always get the top quality of material and labour, for the price you are prepared to pay.

Wherever you are in the world and China is no exception; labour + material + profit = selling price. If you want a cheap item either the labour content or the material content will be reduced, the profit will still be the same. We need to get past the idea that Chinese labour is all cheap, yes unskilled or semi-skilled factory work is low paid, but skilled machine operators are in demand and wages have been increasing by over 10% a year.

Not sure about you lot, I like the idea of a skilled operator being between me and impalement on a broken seat post.

 

[styler]

After the seat post incident I've just taken the Hylix ebay carbon bars off my wife's bike and replaced it with an Easton EC70. It's just not worth it.

I'm still not quite sure about the $26 UNO stem from ebay. Although it gets fantastic reviews on the Euro weight weenie forums and I can't find any photos of them cracking. I guess forged aluminium is a bit more straight forward to make than carbon.

I run Uno stems on most of my bikes. My norco's had uno stems and posts from the factory. I figured if its good enough for OEM fitments then its good enough for me.