brothers and sisters and inbetweeners and memers and members and friends, staff, distinguished alumni and his serene prince Joe Whittingham, king of china cycling
I bring a warning to all those I love (all)
I just saw the flexiest front end I’ve ever seen on GCN Tech
It looked like it would break, I thought, or at least flex and then crack after only a brief period of time. surely there are simple safety standards for these things. also I thought a workplace health and safety issue for the presenters and crew of GCN
there’s also this you tube channel I love, Robert Adair Workshop, he’s absolutely great. a mechanical engineer. he bought this frame off Ali express I guess it was by the brand ‘Twitter’ which in itself ridiculous enough. It lived up to its namesake and was a shoddy bit of work, which required Mr Adair to undertake critical safety work using his considerable engineering qualifications and engineering mindset to overcome some severe defects in the delivered product and – I’m not sure I can use the word ‘restore’ here in the technically correct sense but I’m sure you see what I mean. Repair, considerable repair. in fact I would go as far to say as ‘improvement’ in the end, considering product safety requirements. Yes I would. Mr Adair even produced content titled things like “Do not buy this Twitter frame!” and things like this. That’s what I’m talking about.
I don’t have answers only questions
Reddit is such puerile place to tell such tales, and as if I would even try, hence the subject title.
I saw both videos. There’s no way I would have ridden either frame. Objectively the lack of QC on both frames is significant. Given that, I’d have serious questions about what might not be seen inside the walls of the frame. It’s too bad neither frame will likely be sent to CF repair shop or summat for a good ultrasound analysis.
I would think no one would accept frames with such visibly poor QC from more mainstream brands, but I guess folks will accept poor QC in exchange for an inexpensive frame or component and the requisite repairs or modifications to make it “usable/rideable”.
I do have one question: which has the worst QC: that Twitter frame or a Cybertruck?
well, the cybertruck doesn’t even pass basic european, australian, and probably most other, design rules for vehicles so it doesn’t even matter if it wasn’t a poorly assembled piece of junk, it’s not legal to drive on the road in most places!
I’ve never felt the urge to go to a casino or do sports betting or something, but I find myself thinking about purchasing a Chinese Carbon (C) handlebar way too often. Got some parts from Aliexpress a long time ago and they’re still going strong, but do I really want to gamble my front teeth?
To be absolutely balanced here brothers and sisters and inbetweeners, I must say, to point out in my poast history you will find a recent complaint about FSA Vision changing their handlebar spec. There’s not a basic draught of design on their website and the total pictures simply don’t show the underside anywhere. Previous models and you tube footage of the same model show features where none exist. And you can’t really tell as all the pictures are luscious closeups of the stem, the drops, the top-cap, the branding.
Anyway I guess that’s not as bad as a seemingly guaranteed trip to the hospital or worse but still, for the money you pay for these things! I expect a basic, consumer-level, technical drawing of every product to be on the website. And a list of design changes. At least a note.
Otherwise there’s still the Chinese Carbon King, aka J.W. At least he makes a video and discusses and lists every important specification in his handlebar catalogue from his emporium (and I think the specs he’s gathered should be included on each catalogue entry, which they weren’t last week). Yet, it was something., Quite unlike FSA Vision.
But still, there’s a future project so the vision metron handlebar (who makes these names up anyway) will just await that one.
I don’t trust Vision or FSA on any of the rubbish they make. I was about to work on a Vision Metron integrated cockpit a few years ago (i believe it was the 5D Model), and was kindly reminded by the customer FSA/Vision had printed the wrong torque specification on the handlebar, and informed me to use another provided torque specification. Same model handlebar also had a computer mount bonded insert debond less than a year. TA Vision hubs are beyond atrocious (Formula does a better job by far). Their MTB cranks replicate the same mistakes/design flaws Shimano has committed with their bonded metal cranksets. One of their only good products is the Omega handlebars, which shape has been copied by Specialized (at a more trustable construction quality).
I don’t believe FSA or Vision actually make anything consumer facing, as most of their crap is heavily geared toward product planners. The shitter frames are bad, but the bar had already been set pretty low by industry giants like Samox, FSA, and Promax for years and years. It’s aggregating and frankly embarrassing from an insiders’ view.