PSA - Replica 1-1/8" Chris King headsets

[geddy1972]

The fake Colnago C64s were extremely convincing (I nearly bought one second hand) but I wouldn't put hard cash down for it. You literally have no idea what you're buying. If all you are interested in is something that 'looks' like a flash Colnago then fair play. Colnago are asking nearly five grand for their C68 bare frame.

You can see why the fakers would be interested in copying that, and you could argue also that by pricing themselves so exclusive, they've kinda got it coming....

another reason why the bike industry is trying to destroy itself.

trying to sell overpriced parts/bikes when there is a cost of living crisis going on.

 

[Canuk]

C68: 5899 euro bare frame....

 

[highlandsflyer]

When it comes to brakes, my concern would be failure. How could I be sure of their strength? (Though I suspect many parts are being made in the same factories as the 'real' deal.)

 

[Canuk]

When it comes to brakes, my concern would be failure. How could I be sure of their strength? (Though I suspect many parts are being made in the same factories as the 'real' deal.)

There's a video on YouTube about a famous Taiwanese carbon wheel producer, makes wheels for Specialized et Al. In one of the shots the guy cuts away from the camera and says 'We can't show you this room, this is where all the decals for other manufacturers are applied!'

 

[Canuk]

I'm very sceptical of ANY claims that Colnagos are still 'made in Italy'.

 

[d8mok]

C64 was made in Italy for sure.

The Colnago group has the odd person who buys a fake C64 and it’s pretty obvious they are fake if you have a real one to compare to. Its not even small details but quite big things which is wrong on them.

 

[Cloverleaf]

maybe people do it because the price of genuine parts such as hope are so overpriced that only sponsored people and people with too much money to burn can afford them.

I'm not defending the price of all bike parts, I've been pretty critical in recent years, but my issue is levied at the big investment fund owned brands that offshore everything to the cheapest location they can find while hiking prices. A company like Hope that is keeping skilled manufacturing in the UK should be applauded. As to your comment of 'too much money to burn' it seems a not even veiled dig at those with more money than you, or who are willing to spend money on different things. Different people have different priorities as to what constitutes value, and what they're willing to spend their money on. If you ride hard and regularly a quality component is worth it. You could buy two Cane Creek 40 series headsets for the price of one Hope, but the two CC ones wouldn't last a year whereas my youngest Hope is nearly five years old and still on the original bearings after nearly 10k harsh km, and probably hundreds of jet washes. I wouldn't say £90 for a headset is particularly bad value, and given my last set of their brakes did 12 years I'd say the overall cost per ride is pretty minimal.

Whether that be the owners of the legitimate business/brand or the small child who works for pennies making it- or even the person along the line who the money affects as it’s widely known that fakes fund many terrible things.

Now the labour issue does come into it for me, and why I haven't actually pulled the pin on getting one of these because in everything else I'm a massive proponent of supporting UK labour. In this case the simple fact is that I wouldn't be buying an alternative, I'd just leave the random thing on there that's fitted presently, so no existing manufacturer would be losing out. But the labour and unknown conditions element of it is actually the bit I'm struggling to justify. I still don't care about the genuine bit for the fun of the hobby though. Does it look right for a bike that's going to be ridden once? Yep. Good enough then, if you can get over the potential labour and condition issue. Existing products being ripped off I do have an issue with, and it's probably the bit that pushes me to not bother in this instance.

Your issue with repro stuff made in the EU actually doesn't hold any such problem. It's keeping skilled manufacturing within the EU (not the UK, but better than China), and it's of high quality. The brand in a few examples still exist, yes, but not the companies as they were, and these manufacturers as they exist now have zero interest in the old stuff. Syncros are a far cry, and someone wanting a replica of their nineties exotic stuff are hardly going to be considering one of their Chinese generic ones. The same with Marzocchi. The company as it was is long dead so who cares if someone is making replica fork bridges etc? I think on the copies and cheap 'inspired by' stuff flooding aliexpress etc is a pretty slam dunk think to say is bad. Someone re-engineering stuff no longer available is absolutely fine, both from a safety and moral standpoint, unless you happen to be trying to make large profits from stock of old stuff you've stashed.

Quality wise I'd certainly not fit any of this Chinese fakery to a bike I was actually going to ride purely from a safety perspective. Bars, forks and frames failing can be catastrophic, and does still happen even with the best stuff. Throwing in minimal QC and traceability just makes that risk so much worse. Some things I'd be very careful of sourcing parts; like suspension and brakes on a car, and similarly with any climbing gear. The last thing you want to discover half way up a cliff is that your axe picks are not genuine (I've still broken a few though on mixed routes), or your rope was made of old string. But then if you take the clothing argument, do you think it's okay where a high street chain copies a designer item and offers it for sale having made it in a far east sweat shop? It's a legit company doing it, and where is the line between 'copy' and 'inspired by'? And I don't mean that facetiously, because there is a point where it changes from one to the other, and that point will be different for different people. And then you have the likes of Shein and Temu who aren't actually always copying fashion, but are providing utter garbage products and producing them by the cheapest means possible using questionable labour practices. I say questionable but I think everyone knows it's often beyond that. The problem here goes far beyond a few headsets and instead goes into the bigger piece of how we want to operate as a civilisation, and how we interact with other countries. Personally I don't think any company can knowingly go to china for their products to be manufactured and then complain when they get copied. They know it's going to happen even before they send the designs.

I suspect this whole discussion would be a lot easier in the pub, and could be infinitely more nuanced, but here we are.

 

[geddy1972]

I'm not defending the price of all bike parts, I've been pretty critical in recent years, but my issue is levied at the big investment fund owned brands that offshore everything to the cheapest location they can find while hiking prices. A company like Hope that is keeping skilled manufacturing in the UK should be applauded. As to your comment of 'too much money to burn' it seems a not even veiled dig at those with more money than you, or who are willing to spend money on different things. Different people have different priorities as to what constitutes value, and what they're willing to spend their money on. If you ride hard and regularly a quality component is worth it. You could buy two Cane Creek 40 series headsets for the price of one Hope, but the two CC ones wouldn't last a year whereas my youngest Hope is nearly five years old and still on the original bearings after nearly 10k harsh km, and probably hundreds of jet washes. I wouldn't say £90 for a headset is particularly bad value, and given my last set of their brakes did 12 years I'd say the overall cost per ride is pretty minimal.


Now the labour issue does come into it for me, and why I haven't actually pulled the pin on getting one of these because in everything else I'm a massive proponent of supporting UK labour. In this case the simple fact is that I wouldn't be buying an alternative, I'd just leave the random thing on there that's fitted presently, so no existing manufacturer would be losing out. But the labour and unknown conditions element of it is actually the bit I'm struggling to justify. I still don't care about the genuine bit for the fun of the hobby though. Does it look right for a bike that's going to be ridden once? Yep. Good enough then, if you can get over the potential labour and condition issue. Existing products being ripped off I do have an issue with, and it's probably the bit that pushes me to not bother in this instance.

Your issue with repro stuff made in the EU actually doesn't hold any such problem. It's keeping skilled manufacturing within the EU (not the UK, but better than China), and it's of high quality. The brand in a few examples still exist, yes, but not the companies as they were, and these manufacturers as they exist now have zero interest in the old stuff. Syncros are a far cry, and someone wanting a replica of their nineties exotic stuff are hardly going to be considering one of their Chinese generic ones. The same with Marzocchi. The company as it was is long dead so who cares if someone is making replica fork bridges etc? I think on the copies and cheap 'inspired by' stuff flooding aliexpress etc is a pretty slam dunk think to say is bad. Someone re-engineering stuff no longer available is absolutely fine, both from a safety and moral standpoint, unless you happen to be trying to make large profits from stock of old stuff you've stashed.

Quality wise I'd certainly not fit any of this Chinese fakery to a bike I was actually going to ride purely from a safety perspective. Bars, forks and frames failing can be catastrophic, and does still happen even with the best stuff. Throwing in minimal QC and traceability just makes that risk so much worse. Some things I'd be very careful of sourcing parts; like suspension and brakes on a car, and similarly with any climbing gear. The last thing you want to discover half way up a cliff is that your axe picks are not genuine (I've still broken a few though on mixed routes), or your rope was made of old string. But then if you take the clothing argument, do you think it's okay where a high street chain copies a designer item and offers it for sale having made it in a far east sweat shop? It's a legit company doing it, and where is the line between 'copy' and 'inspired by'? And I don't mean that facetiously, because there is a point where it changes from one to the other, and that point will be different for different people. And then you have the likes of Shein and Temu who aren't actually always copying fashion, but are providing utter garbage products and producing them by the cheapest means possible using questionable labour practices. I say questionable but I think everyone knows it's often beyond that. The problem here goes far beyond a few headsets and instead goes into the bigger piece of how we want to operate as a civilisation, and how we interact with other countries. Personally I don't think any company can knowingly go to china for their products to be manufactured and then complain when they get copied. They know it's going to happen even before they send the designs.

I suspect this whole discussion would be a lot easier in the pub, and could be infinitely more nuanced, but here we are.

ref £90 for a headset ! thats exactly the reason why i said about money then sense.

i have an FSA the pig headset on my commuter bike and its probably done around 12,000 miles over the past 3 years and has never needed new bearings. it prob cost me no more than 20 quid.

back to the topic of fake items, if there wasnt a market for them then companies in china or anywhere else wouldnt make them.

we live in a throw away society and dont expect things to last forever so why pay lots of money for a product we know will fail/break or fall apart within a few years or less.

 

[highlandsflyer]

C64 was made in Italy for sure.

The Colnago group has the odd person who buys a fake C64 and it’s pretty obvious they are fake if you have a real one to compare to. Its not even small details but quite big things which is wrong on them.

There is an interesting development occurring, which is down to the internet. The eastern brands are on the rise, and gaining traction. Perhaps imitation does lead to innovation.

 

[Cloverleaf]

ref £90 for a headset ! thats exactly the reason why i said about money then sense.

i have an FSA the pig headset on my commuter bike and its probably done around 12,000 miles over the past 3 years and has never needed new bearings. it prob cost me no more than 20 quid.

back to the topic of fake items, if there wasnt a market for them then companies in china or anywhere else wouldnt make them.

we live in a throw away society and dont expect things to last forever so why pay lots of money for a product we know will fail/break or fall apart within a few years or less.

To your first point; like I said, it depends on your POV. It works perfectly, it's smooth, it's light and it'll last many years more. I haven't had to touch it in that time. The Pig was a basic, budget and not very good headset 25 years ago. Sealing was non existent and it needed regressing every few weekends, especially if you were jetwashing the bike (and don't say don't jet wash it, if you're riding in deep mud or racing every weekend you have no choice). Maybe it's fine for light trails in a clean environment, or on a commuter, but for riding in bad conditions it's certainly not the one. Hence my point of us all having different approaches and viewpoints and perspectives on value. Sod regreasing a headset even every month. Life's short, I want to ride my bike, not spend time fixing it so I can ride it. And of course buying a British brand which manufactures in this country rather than a Taiwanese/Chinese one supports our economy rather than another. That and the Hope guys are great and easy to deal with.

To your second point; absolutely agreed. The problem these days is that lots of 'high end' brands have also cheapened their products to either make more profit, or gain more market share, so that their products are a far cry from what could be found even ten years ago. Everything has become disposable so spending more money in many instances is far from a guarantee that you will actually get a product which lasts. And of course most stuff these days is designed to be as light and/or minimal as possible so everything is integrated and it's almost impossible to repair. Even the companies that say they're green rarely are. Adidas make a big point about the environment but after taking over Five Ten the quality went downhill, most designs became non-resolable, and they stopped selling their rubber to shoe repairers so you could no longer resole climbing or approach shoes. Scarpa are similar in that it's no longer just an outsole that needs to be replaced on many of their boots but instead all but the uppers. More waste, more expense, and as a result most people would just chuck the boots. After all why would you repair something for £200 when a new pair can be found on sale for £250?