This is something I know a little about. I used to run a moderately popular website cataloging unbranded Chinese framesets, and builds using them.

This article rides that line between expressing genuine problems and trying to scare people.

Yes, there are plenty of fake frames around. Yes, I'm sure some EBay carbon handlebars are unsafe.

But at the same time there are lots (more?) Chinese frames around that aren't "fake", but are just less costly. For example, there is the Hong-Fu FM-066/069, which is kind of a cross between a Cervelo R5 and a Cannondale SuperSix, except around ~$500. It's light (around ~800 grams) and has a good reputation for quality.

Interestingly, one of the big selling points is that they are quicker to market with features than the major brands. Until last year if you wanted a Cervelo R3/R5 with Di2 cable routing you had to drill holes in the frame yourself. The FM-66 could be ordered like that, or with conventional cables, and with your choice of bottom bracket (instead of the annoying BBRight thing Cervelo uses). Same with disc brakes: the FM-069 is a road disc bike, out two years before Cervelo or Cannondale managed it.

There are some pretty obvious PR motivations for Specialized here:

1) Try to dissuade people from buying cheap Chinese frames (not just the counterfeit frames in the article, but the higher quality ones that have been gaining popularity on various internet forums).

2) Justify Specialized's extreme litigiousness with respect to trademarks (which has gotten it a lot of negative press) by spreading the idea that it's motivated by the goal of protecting its customers from unsafe products.

On the other hand, I'm sure counterfeits are really a problem. It's probably tempting for Chinese companies that are making a pittance selling bike parts to other companies to make copies to get prices that are many times higher.

I ordered a highly rated head light and tail light the other day off amazon. When it came everything was super cheap thin plastic and the head light wouldn't turn on at all even with fresh batteries. The tail light turned on once, then my finger pushed the button through the body. Apparently there's a common amazon hack by sellers where they sell the real thing for a while to get good ratings, then switch to selling cheap knock offs...

Interesting. But I cannot stop thinking of http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

When I ride I like to have some idea that my bike isn't going to fall apart. I safety check before my commute. Bikes & helmets are something you kinda don't want to fail when in traffic.

Bikes are commodities now, except on the high end. Thus the cheap stuff can be sold as expensive.

These are complex machines. TREK had a recall for an issue that caused a bunch of injuries.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/qr-disk-brake.html

"Ideally, we would want bicycles which are properly assembled, adjusted and maintained to be free of problems which lead to sudden, catastrophic, unexpected failure. Any mechanical system will deteriorate sooner or later, and so an incipient failure should preferably give warning in advance, or be preceded by another, more benign failure which puts the part out of service, or be so very unlikely that it is not of serious concern, or a second system should be able to take over from one which failed. A properly-adjusted enclosed-cam quick release assembly on a bicycle with no front disk brake meets this test, by being very unlikely to fail."

This problem has a straightforward technical solution: manufacturers should put a unique serial number on every product, and encourage customers to validate the number after purchasing. A counterfeit will either have a bogus number that's not in the database, or a cloned number that shows up in two or more places.

I noticed that Spigen uses this approach, after buying a $9 case for my phone.

> Sure enough, you have a frame that looks dead-on like it’s a Venge,” he recalls. “You could tell it was Chinese-direct. But I’d bought things from overseas on eBay, so I was comfortable with it.”

This guy straight up says he was "comfortable" buying a counterfeit frame (anything coming direct from China with a non-China trademark), so what exactly is the point of this article? He played around and lost.

China, being an entire country, has some great stuff and some absolute shite. If bike parts are anything like electronics, I'd recommend buying unbranded or Chinese-branded stuff. Inspect the quality thoroughly on receipt. And if you want the ability to return poor quality, pay a little overhead and buy from a US middleman who is incentivized to do the QA legwork for you.

This article is an incoherent mess. No hard numbers. No characterization of the problem: Is it factory seconds being stolen and sold? Is it contract manufacturers selling US OEM products they are contractually disallowed from selling?

It seems unlikely that a frame sold in extremely limited quantities would be reverse engineered and copied. It is more likely that OEMs have lost control of their suppliers while chasing cheaper costs. Boo fricken hoo.

I'd be interesting to understand where these issues fall in terms of international agreements. Basically, where is the international pressure to not let China sell shit that will cause injuries?

The world's main carbon manufacturing base (for bikes at least) seems to be in Taiwan. It is not surprise that when you have all the tools (Mandrel's, carbon sheets, etc) and expertise that there is a class of people building knockoffs. I don't think you could find many people in the US even remotely capable of making a knock-off.

There are certainly novel designs and fancy welding, but bike frames are essentially tubes of carbon fiber / steel formed or welded together with the manufacturers brand sticker slapped on top. Seems like this could be ideal for a Warby Parker like entrant.

It would have been nice for them to explain what they meant by "open mold" counterfeiting. That this article is the 2nd result on Google if you search for those terms tells me it isn't well-defined elsewhere.

This article is too mild, not exaggerated or a commercial advocacy piece as some commenters assert.

I know lot about carbon fiber. I own and run a business designing and hands-on fabricating carbon fiber components and products for aerospace/defense, top motorsports teams, UAV/Drones, sporting goods and more. (started this 12yrs ago after one of the software companies I co-founded sold).

I was a competitive cyclist and still Mtn Bike a lot and race occasionally. Obviously, I think carbon components are fantastic. I could make my own, but I do not.

Here's why:

ENGINEERED MATERIALS: Carbon Fiber composites are an engineered material. This is great because the strength is very specific, and we can put the strength exactly where we need it, and omit the strength -and the weight- where it is not needed.

This also means that the materials MUST be properly engineered to yield acceptable performance. This is NOT just fancy plastic or "black aluminum".

Get the engineering right, and you have amazing parts that are both stronger and lighter than steel or aluminum. It is not unusual for us to outperform an aluminum product with a 40-50% weight savings and higher strength numbers.

BUT, get the engineering wrong, and a carbon part that looks massively overbuilt, thicker and heavier than the equivalent steel part, will fail catastrophically.

Moreover, there are THOUSANDS of combinations of grades of carbon fibers and epoxies, all appropriate for different applications, and these must also be properly selected.

So, even if you obtain the exact molds used by Specalized to make their frame, without knowing the exact materials and design, it would be very difficult to make a frame that performed properly.

FABRICATION PROCESS: The fabrication process is critical. - Everything must be cleaned properly. - Every single one of the hundreds of pieces of carbon fiber must be cut properly, then placed properly in the mold, in the correct sequence, and the correct orientation. - The mold components and compression tools must be placed properly and achieve and maintain the designed pressures. - The heat and cooling cycle must be applied properly. - The demolding must occur properly. - Any post-cure cycling must occur properly. - Any secondary bonding must be prepared and executed properly.

Any failure in these hundreds of steps, and the frame will have a flaw that can hurt of kill someone. (not that it necessarily will, but it easily could -- simply consider hitting bumps in a fast descent -- that will be the exact point of maximum load, most likely to cause failure, and now the cyclist is Wyle E. Coyote... not fun).

The fabrication process is analogous to having to ship software where we cannot make an error-corrected perfect digital copy, but each new copy must be hand-transcribed before shipping, and of course cannot be destructively tested. How well would you trust bootleg software running your heart pacemaker if it had to be copied the way monks copied bibles in the middle ages?

TESTING PROCESS: Both the engineering design and the fabrication process must be subjected to rigorous testing.

On the engineering side, even the most sophisticated modeling software needs real-world test validation of even basic parts models, as the number of variables is huge, and an initial design often does not yield the expected results.

On the production side, every step of the process must be carefully designed, and verified to accurately and repeatedly produce parts that perform as engineered.

BOTTOM LINE: This is obviously just skimming the surface, but the bottom line is that there are hundreds of opportunities for failures to creep in even when trying to do it right, and ridiculous opportunities for counterfeiters to cut corners. And most of them will NOT be readily visible to casual inspection of the product.

I could, with my knowledge and access to my own shop, make a pair of carbon fiber handlebars to ride tomorrow. But I wouldn't ride them further than around the parking lot. We'd need to make a big investment in designing then fabricating and testing scores of units before having the confidence to take one for a real ride.

But, standing in the shoes of a desperate counterfeiter in China, where ripping-off IP is the ethical norm, and who will be selling parts to unseen and probably despised customers on the other side of the globe, and who probably doesn't understand enough about the engineering pitfalls anyway ... ... sure, just copy some molds, buy any old carbon, and start slapping it in and cooking it, just make sure it looks good.

I've seen even legit parts come in from Asia with crazy shortcuts, never mind the counterfeit stuff. I've also personally witnessed those parts causing disasters.

As a rider, just seeing this crap coming into the US is truly frightening. Even the legit parts are cause for worry -- are the US guys actually riding herd on the Chinese QC well enough? Probably.

The counterfeit or low-market stuff? Forget it -- you literally couldn't pay me enough to ride it anywhere further than across the parking lot. Anyone who considers doing so is really ignorant of the real risks.

It's just physics, and physics does not care about you.

This whole article is a shill piece for specialized, and for the LBS racket as a whole. How is this contributing anything?

Meh. If your not a pro competing in the tour de france then there will be almost no performance difference between the $18,000 bike described and a c $600 bike.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4MIEkIBZs

When cycling your power/weight ratio is determined by you. Its obvious the purpose of these $1000+ bikes is to be status symbols for rich idiots.