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

Chinertown forums have fairly good discussion of pros/cons of various open mould sellers

Is it worth to pay extra for grooved braking surface on lb rims? Does it really affects braking performance?

yes i think it's better with grooves

Balugoe saddles.
Has anyone ON HERE used them?

I think maybe @PhilDAS

Nope, only legit saddles here

The effort I'm putting into not buying the same saddle I already have, I should just buy that.

Do it! For some reason, my butt has changed and I don't agree with my road saddle anymore and I hate it so much. I just want to have a saddle again that works.

Is anyone in China making steel frames?

Darkrock, Tsunami, Seaboard are different brand names of Steel frames from the same manufacturer.

Had anyone tried one of those mini portable electric pumps off Aliexpress? I'm intrigued by them but definitely can't stomach the cost of the £70 Cycplus one off Amazon.

I got one the other day but haven't tried it yet. Will try it and report back...

Cheers, greatly appreciated

It's great.
I got this one, as it was the smallest of the various options.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005999149230.html?spm=a2g0n.order_detail.order_detail_item.3.51edf19cSJZpRD

just deflated a 28mm tyre and blew it up with this, to about 80psi. Took maybe 1.5 minutes. Battery lasts for 4 minutes so I'd expect to be able to get two-three tyre inflations from it - depending on size and pressure, obvs.

Cheers that was the one I was looking at.

I'm impressed with my Ali-X chainrings.
Has anyone tried the cassettes?

Tried a lot of stuff. Single narrow wide rings have generally been ok. Seen quite a few issues with chainsets & rings. One of which is the insistence that everything is posted in yellow jiffy bag se I've receive bent teeth but also the pickup pins on 2x stuff, particularly one piece CNC double rings have been poor and I've had to get a file out here and there. Cassettes are largely junk, ztto/sunX/zrace in any speed. The QC isn't there and sellers regularly ship a badly made one. Some of the lock rings are turd but that's not a big issue. I typically find you'll always get a noise in your drivetrain because of some flaw which takes diligence to spot and then is hard to rectify because it'll be in the middle of a pinned cluster. In short most of it is a generation behind with shifting quality because the designs of those elements are a bit crude. For example if you buy one of the Ali x groupsets like Sensah AND cheap cassette/rings.. then you're in for a crappy time. If youre mixing in a Shimano cassette or using a Shimano groupset with a zrace cassette, it will function but be nowhere near R8000 reliable.

What's the brand? Link doesn't work for me.

Thanks. I'll leave off the cassettes for the time being.

Fwiw the rings that I have that work well are a Stone double, 32-46.

Cyclami

Ta

Anyone know why the Spexcel range has reduced so much? And any alternatives with a similar price / quality ratio? Was about to put in a monster order

Had anyone tried one of those mini portable electric pumps off Aliexpress? I'm intrigued by them but definitely can't stomach the cost of the £70 Cycplus one off Amazon.

It is interesting as here in Vietnam, the cycplus ones reatail for around 35 pounds. I really rate them though. Basically just carry a daysaver, dynaplug racer and this in my rapha essentials wallet thing.

Intrigue got the better of me and I bought this carbon saddle off Temu for £9 (thanks to some targeted IG ads over Christmas)

It was obviously a mistake. The digital calipers I bought seem okay though.

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Anyone looking for rim brakes wheelset?

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/392896/#comment17242975