Carbon rims

Hi all,

before I go on, I'll be totally honest with you why I'm asking. My work involves a lot of importing and exporting to China and Japan, we receive a lot of containers which are 1/2 full. After speaking with my boss, I may soon be able to start bringing a few of these wheelsets back.

I'm not trying to advertise or give out any details, I'd just like to know how the general public feel about it these products.

I'd like to know your opinions on the Chinese carbon rims which are available on eBay please. How do you rate the quality? How do they ride? Would you buy another set? Would you purchase a set in the UK if they where cheaper?

Hope this isn't too cheeky to ask!

James

I've no experience with Carbon rims but if the quality and price are similar to branded carbon rims, I reckon people will buy. Good luck.

I used to import quite a lot of carbon fibre wheelsets from Taiwan and they sold well. Like all businesses, you have to suss out the companies that produce quality goods.

PM me for more info if required.

^ this.

There's nothing inherently bad about chinese carbon rims because lots of very high end bikes have them on them. But unknown carbon could potentially be catastrophic.

I'm interested, regardless.

Thanks for the advice and opinions guys, appreciate it.

I'd be looking to get some in for testing before ordering anything in bulk. I'd also go about contacting riders who have experience over time with these rims.

James

Took a punt on a pair off ebay, road 20/24 on Novatec hubs for a princely £260. Perfectly good quality, done 1000 miles on them, weight as advertised, but please note you'll need to get a decent mechanic to true and tension them first. If you look at p106 in the current Procycling, there's a pair marketed as 'Graphit' which I would swear are identical for £519.88.

Most bike parts are made out in the east, including some of the best stuff available. What you get from a reputable brand name is quality control. Word from a friend who spoke to a Wilier rep is they test 1 frame out of every batch of 10 produced to destruction, and if it falls below standards they remove that batch and one either side.

I have some chinese carbon tubs which I picked up for cheap, they do me well and I haven't had any issues yet. Getting them trued/tensioned by a good mechanic was worthwhile though.

Check the Orient Express thread for 37 pages of carbon import japery

Or speak to Dammit who has imported rougly 50% of the orients 3k weave output

May I ask how he gets them here and how large is a large quantity?

I have some Farsports 50mm deep section tubs on Novatec hubs. I've used them for cycloscross. They've survived quite a battering.

They are fine - nice and light, cheapish and look sexh. BUT they are a couple of generations behind Firecrest. Anecdotal evidence from Dammit suggests the aero benefit isn't all that compared to similarly deep wheel from Zipp. I think this is backed up elsewhere. Mine roll in mud though, so I wouldn't really have any experience of this.

Given that I can get what is probably the same wheelset from PX for about the same price, I wouldn't buy any more.

Personally I'd go for frames - like PX and Ritte do, because it's more likely they will be on par performance wise with 'genuine' branded frames.

I've heard that the 88mm things that Chinese are spewing out are actually quite good - not in the same league as anything branded, but are built like a shit brickhouse, or a brick shithouse; I can never remember the difference :P

My next problem to sort is spoke holes, obviously ordering pre-drilled holes will be quite hard to know what customers would like, so probably to drill the holes upon order would be best.

Anyone had experience with drilling the holes for the rims via a jig? What would be the best way of going about this?

James

James, unless you have a darned good engineering rig I would suggest that you have pre-drilled rims.

I'd have thought that a stock of 20's, 24's and 28's would suit 95%+ of scenarios.

Just my 2c.

20 and 24 for 60-80mm, 24 and 28 for anything more shallow.

I don't think the carbon forks have a great reputation, not from experience but you might want to double check before ordering framesets

I've spoken to a few enginerring firms today and it wouldn't be economical to get them to do it.

Yeah, my best best is to probably have them drilled. I'll possibly do a bit of a survey to find out best spoke holes for each size (Andy, you're pretty much dead on, but I'd like to just check beforehand)

James

Had a pair built up on Novatec hubs with Sapim X Ray spokes. Rode really well and light at 1350g for the pair - however after knocking the rear significantly out of true twice on steep climbs (didn't hit any potholes etc.) and having them rebuilt I gave up and bought Ksyrium SLs. The SLs are c.1485g for the pair and have been absolutely bombproof. Maybe I'm just a fat B... but at 85kg didn't think the carbons would have problems .....

Out of interest what was the spoke count?

Possibly just as pertinent- who built them?

I gave a 24 spoke rear a lot of use at ~78kg, and they stood up to 1,300 watt accelerations just fine.

I'm 86 Kg, and ride like a clumsy twat. My 24 spoked rear crabon wheel (rim from farspots) hasnt needed touching.

Atually managed to pull the rear out of the drop outs once, jam the rim into my brake caliper, and only stopping when the tyre jammed into the seatstay. Still did'nt need truing, just a rethink regarding how hard to tighten the rear axle bolts.

I have a pair of 30mm clinchers which I had built up with a 20h Soul lightweight front road hub and a 24h American Classic track on the back all laced up with Cx-rays. Been riding them for over a year now and theyve held up great. For what its worth I did get them built up by a highly experienced wheelbuilder (Dan from shifter bikes) but he himself has built heaps of chinese wheelsets up now and highly recommends them for the price.

If you import rims to sell be aware people will come to you if there is any problem with them, and you may need liability insurance in case someone gets hurt.

I have a pair of 30mm clinchers which I had built up with a 20h Soul lightweight front road hub and a 24h American Classic track on the back all laced up with Cx-rays. Been riding them for over a year now and theyve held up great. For what its worth I did get them built up by a highly experienced wheelbuilder (Dan from shifter bikes) but he himself has built heaps of chinese wheelsets up now and highly recommends them for the price.

sounds like a nice wheelset. got any pictures?

Give me some to try

Safe