Orient Express - Cheap Chinese Rims / Wheels / Forks / Frames / Cranks / Etc

Got my cn*carbon wheels today, although the invoice says 'carbonspeedcycle', another eBay seller, so I'm guessing they're the same company.

First impressions are good. The wheels look well made, no obvious issues with either the carbon finish or the build. They did the 28h drilling I asked for. They come with rim tape fitted, skewers (which I've not used) and 3 spare spokes.

Tyres went on nice and easily, pumped them up and nothing exploded... I fitted them to the bike and (apart from it looking completely ridiculous) all's well so far. I won't get a chance to ride them until the weekend but if anyone's interested I'll keep you posted.

Here's a quick pic, ignore the sewing machines and crap lying around.

apart from it looking completely ridiculous

Disagree, looks mean

Strong that

Yeah i like.hope to see it soon winter almost over. Days getting longer

Aww shucks, thanks guys 😊

Yes! Gonna run out of excuses not to be doing the full commute again soon. Hopefully my aerodynamics will be improved enough to get me home before 7pm...

Indeed you are!

Looks sick.

With disc brakes, I can't really see what issues there can be with carbon rims.

Obviously you wouldn't want to go too cheap, but as long as they're not going to shatter when you go through s pot hole, what else is there to bother you?

Yeah, the shattering/falling apart is kind of my biggest fear, especially as I'm around 90-95kg. Hopefully the extra 4 spokes per wheel will slightly mitigate against that?

Before I had a disc brake bike it always seemed silly to spend big on something that would have a negative effect on my braking and wear out as I used them, but once I got discs it seemed to make more sense (in a frivolous purchase kind of way).

Anyway, they seem pretty solid, so hopefully I'll manage to retain my teeth.

I don't get this fear of carbon being fragile. It's tougher than aluminium and people have happily used that in wheels without getting the heebeejeebees for aeons.

I think it's about failure modes. Aluminium tends to fail a little less spectacularly than carbon. You can get a pretty massive dent in an ali rim and still come safely to a stop. Do the same on carbon and face meets floor pretty fast.

Plus I've essentially bought carbon wheels of unknown provenance, with no idea of the QC process, with little recourse if they do fall apart. I've done that pretty much based on ebay feedback and a few people on here who've had wheels from the same ebay seller.

I'm not complaining and I made my choice of wheels knowing the above, but I'm going to be slightly cautious on my first few rides until I'm pretty sure they're ok.

Oh, and it's worth checking out this guy's instagram for carbon scares: https://www.instagram.com/luescher_teknik/?hl=en

Tempted just for the lolz. Are they death traps though? Can't imagine my current On One carbon frame being any safer?

get carbonda instead

out of context ANYTHING can seem dangerous .. Teknik is a bit #PostTruth

How so? He doesn't seem to be dead set against Chinese carbon, I seem to recall he had a pic of a cross-section of an enve rim with voids in it?

and who says voids is a bad thing? whatever he is cutting up and showing will always look 'omg big brands are saving money by putting less carbon' etc. Who knows whats the best practice? I'd rather trust enve than some dude (he might as well have a PHD) in a garage for expertise.

Well the wiki appears to suggest that:

Because a void is a non-uniformity in a composite material, it can affect the mechanical properties and lifespan of the composite.[1] Voids can act as a crack nucleation site as well as allow moisture to penetrate the composite and contribute to anisotropy of the composite .[2] This is an issue because crack formation and propagation can create unpredictable behavior in the laminate...a 1%-3% increase in void content can reduce the mechanical properties of the composite by up to 20%

But I'm no expert...

But I'm no expert...

Exactly. Enve has done extensive QC so I will trust them rather than Teknik.

I can't afford/justify Enve stuff but I don't want to fool myself that my China wheels are better.

Teknik is #PostTruth

I don't think he ever says one os better than the other, just compares differences. You can't deny that voids are not good in a carbon laminate. Probably not catastrophic in most cases as everything is built with tolerances to account for things like this. I don't think ENVE are more or less likely to carry out QC on every single product than anyone else.

You can't deny that voids are not good in a carbon laminate.

Citation?

I don't think ENVE are more or less likely to carry out QC on every single product than anyone else.

I'd imagine more given the price.

Nah, I never said I (or he) believes that china carbon is better. What I said was that he seems fairly even-handed with his criticism of carbon stuff.

I imagine the stuff he's asked to do post-crash assessments on is likely to be pretty high-end, as cheaper stuff is more likely to just be binned after it's been crashed. So that may be why the majority of the stuff he ends up taking pics of is fancier than your average chinese carbon wheel.

The citations are in the wiki, if you can find a copy of "ASTM D2734-09, Standard Test Methods for Void Content of Reinforced Plastics, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2009, http://www.astm.org" and here, if you've got a science login: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/001043619290186X

Citation?

Basic engineering? Cracks / voids create stress concentration (~x3 for a circular hole.

This is brand trust at it's finest.

If voids are meant to be there, why are they not uniform around the rim? From a mechanical point of view, a void on one side of a rim compared to the other side would make it weaker and more flexible, thus creating an imbalance, unless Enve designed this in due to assymetric wheelbuilds (which they most certainly didn't) then it's a QC issue.

And the "some guy in a garage" point is null as well

Raoul has also been involved with composite materials for over 25 years. He has been employed by Boeing Aerospace, Defence and the Australian Institute of Sport. He has extensive experience in quality control of composites, manufacturing and design. Raoul has designed and built many composite items, including items used in the Olympic games, the Malvern Star range of carbon bicycles which won an Australian Design Mark and the groundbreaking BC composites Tammar mountain bike enduro rim. He has worked with national, Olympic and professional athletes in a technology and equipment advisor role and is passionate about sports performance.

So he's basically one of them.