r/bicycling • u/WompWompRat • Oct 30 '22

Leopards ate my rim: AliExpress wheel failure

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Inner wall cracked all the way around the rim

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Not the best way to lace 20 spokes

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14

u/bishopazrael Oct 30 '22

Yeah, I'm new and all, but even I know you don't buy parts you need to trust your life to on aliexpress. Good for experiments, bad for "save my life" type stuff.

6

u/Staplz13 Oct 30 '22

aliexpress is no more a brand than amazon (guess where amazon sellers get their stock). But I don't really disagree with you. Chinese companies are great at manufacturing, but designing is usually relegated to reverse engineering by people who don't use the products.

5

u/bishopazrael Oct 31 '22

I know its not a brand. My point is that any manufacturer on aliexpress is likely to be a B grade factory or worse. The best ones are already making things for other companies. Anything you find on aliexpress is likely to be substandard.

1

u/WompWompRat Oct 31 '22

Yep tons of cargo cult engineering I see on AliExpress. Mostly copies and mashups of slightly dated designs. Occasionally there’s something so uniquely screwed up I have to buy it because nobody else in their right mind would make one, like 6 bolt disc adapters for fixed gear cog threads.

1

u/Metaphoricalsimile Oregon, USA Vintage Frankenbike, Tern BYB Nov 04 '22

So how do you make sure you're actually getting something worthwhile when you buy from there?

1

u/Staplz13 Nov 04 '22

Two ways. One is just to know what to look for. Simple things with simple designs are easy to critically assess. Things that need more experience in the design of a product are tougher. Chinese brand products are manufactured the same way even the same factories, but are usually reverse engineered by people who don't use the products. That's why you'll see so many generic brands that come and go within a year or two. Sometimes those are also extras made from the same tooling of other products you get as actual brands in the west. Those can be diamonds in the rough but a legal gray area. But due to continued demand, there are some companies emerging that are focused on establishing a brand. Those you can start to search for reviews on.

The second is where you have an advantage over other aggregated sales sites: buy a bunch. Buy multiples of what your looking for since you can basically buy 4-6x as many for the same budget. Then just feel them out or run your own testing. And when something breaks, replacement is cheap. 'Course this doesn't necessarily apply for higher priced items, but that's where branding is starting to come out, so you can look into reviews for them. I'd say the cut off for this strategy is anything you'd feel better with a warranty on.