As always, the entire entry is highly subjective - I can not guarantee that in this way you will avoid buying a fake, I also do not guarantee that all items shown here are counterfeits. Careful, however, cold, so I assume that if something seems suspicious to me, I do not risk it. I have little hope that the sellers will not read these tips and will not modify their listings. This is not an entry about whether it is worth risking - everyone has their brains, knows how to assess risks, sees the difference between counterfeiting and branded "the Chinese„.

Internet storm

I look at any internet comments through my fingers. Most of the discussions about the purchase of "Chinese replicas" (in fact, Taiwanese, I will not go into details, but in politics) end up with insults and the lack of any particulars. The reason is simple: the discussants are divided into three groups:

• people who bought original parts / clothes / bikes by paying several times more and do not accept that it can be otherwise.
• people who ride on Chinese and live - thus confirming their theory that it is possible
• people directly or indirectly connected with the bicycle industry. Rather, you can not count on the fact that anyone of them will admit that a fake, or at least branded Chinese they are good.

Is every Chinese a Chinese?

Almost all bikes come from China, that's a fact. Arguments that "my bike left the same factory as yours, only that they did it after working hours" are an invalid and I will not explain why. It's a separate topic. At the outset, I would like to point out that there are a huge number of companies that brand parts with their names: Hongfu, Dengfu, Farsports, Flyxia etc. I think they are cool - I know a lot of people who drive and praise them. There are also non-housing companies that produce travel. Buying them is morally questionable (as mentioned in the paragraph below), however, selling them as originals is simply cheating and thieving. If you are sure of what you are buying, you will not go wrong. If you do not know the topic - oil and buy proven equipment.

Buy Chinarello, Chinollini, Chinarolo?

Imagine Seb, who buys a 15-year-old BMW (I have nothing to BMW - I'm flying in a stereotype). The thresholds are slightly smudged with rust, the stringers are quite good, because removed from the cars in which they just worked, rods and some other rubber do not work, but you can not see them. To this the M3 badge on the flap at the back and you can go. That's how I see the Chinese counterfeit. You can buy a Punto for the same price on a thousand roads, but what will your friends say then? They will not say anything because it's boring. That is to say, if you would ride their Punt on the track, but you still need skills, not the equipment itself.

Is Chinese safe? Nobody will answer this question. Maybe yes maybe no. Most probably. We live in the 21st century and each, smaller or larger fakap reflects a new topic on the Internet, while the number of threads with fake parts that have broken down is really small. Searching for photos I will sooner or later get the same entries, the same Pinarello, which broke, and in the middle were Asian newspapers. This story is so naive that equally good employees of Pina could have thrown it into the net as a provocation. The truth is we probably will not kill them - PROBABLY. Minor mistakes, such as unmatched elements that happen quite often, make us think about what the production process might look like. If they can not perfectly do visible things, how do they look inside?

In short (in my opinion): buying parts branded by Chinese factories is cool, buying parts that pretend to be other companies is weak - do not be Sebkiem!

So let's assume you're a decent man and you want to buy an original bike (or put together some of the parts that are not pretending to be others). In a perfect world, it would be easy - unfortunately, reality turns out to be very painful as usual. Mirki - traders are everywhere and using the fact that at first glance Chinollini is no different from the original costing 10x more, they will want to cheat you. How to defend against it? Here are my ways:

Is this frame faked?

You enter the allegro in search of your dream Pinarello F8 frame and you see several auctions with a frame for 20,000 and one with a ready bike for 17700 PLN. If something is so expensive, it probably will not be cheated, right?

The first point, we enter the most popular sales site majfriendów and we check if they have such a frame. We know well that they will have, because they already have almost everything.

For a water faucet! However, they do not have!

Does this mean that counterfeit products have disappeared? Well, unfortunately not. A moment of smuggling on the net and it turns out that Pinarello managed to remove all counterfeit auctions. We'll find Cipollini further, Ridley, Gianty, Trehi (yes - Trehi), even Cuby, but our F8 is missing. Solved problem?

Nope, the frame is only available as unpainted or branded with a different name. If we click "buy" a polite seller will probably ask what we would like to have on it. If we dig a little deeper and leave the key word "Pinarello" sooner or later, we will hit the frame available in every size and 40 colors. So we know that this frame appears as a "replica", we have a point of attachment.

Of course, ordinary frames are boring. We can also choose from the most limited ones from limited editions, even cheaper, at another seller :)

Other seller's items

This is the first thing I always check. If the seller has more frames and all of them at a similar price (or helmets, steering wheels, bridges, whatever), this should give us food for thought. What do we see with this?

Oh, look! There is another Pinarello at a similar price ... and S-works Venge! The yellow pendant shines more and more.

In the other auctions of the seller (here is another example), it is also worth looking at from a different angle. If the guest sells a lot of cycling stuff, plus a lot of other things in each of the possible categories, from electronic equipment (which is also surprisingly available on aliexpress) to all kinds of crap, you can think of it as a clue: 

Full Carbon, replica - keywords and no name

Whenever I see the phrase "full carbon" I turn on the vigilance mode. Especially when it occurs instead of the name. Have you noticed Zippy in the picture above? If the Zippy were real, would not the salesperson write it? Similarly, like the word "replica" or "copy" - it's a nice replacement of the word "TRAVEL".

Price, too low or identical for many items

I often sit on allegro. There are probably a few dozen such guys like me in Poland. If I see that someone sells the original part at a price several times lower than it should be, this is a unique opportunity and I click "buy now" immediately. Like probably those dozens of other guys. Getting a great opportunity is a real miracle.

There is no such thing as original costumes of professional cycling groups for PLN 240. To understand this, just go to any store. At this price, we will not even get the shirt itself. Are these clothes bad? No, they are not. They are definitely worse than the original ones, they have a different, much looser cut, different material, but they are still quite good considering the price-quality ratio. Sam drove with two winters in a set for ~ 180 PLN. Are you sure you want to support the left sellers? For the wrong two, it's better to choose the same set with the "non-business" print. We will find this one too. By the way, paradoxically, the situation is that we go in costumes, in which we look like an advertising banner, paying for them at the same time thick hundreds. This can be explained only by the desire to support your favorite team / company.

Let's look at this list, do you really believe that if the seller among his items has ENVE bridges for PLN 99 and steering wheels after PLN 199.99 - and two different models, from a different price range, both new, both the same: WCS and Superlogic, will these be the originals? Well, not really. The Chinese do not care what writing there.

Delivery time and location

One of the best ways to check, especially for clothes and frames. Very often in the auction description the location of the item is marked as "internet", and the delivery time is 15 days +

to this note: "The product is absolutely new and comes from a legal source. Is sent from abroad. The delivery time is at least 14 business days, up to 25 business days. You receive the parcel via Poczta Polska. " and we can be sure that we buy from Mirek, who orders in China for PLN 150, gives our shipping address there and takes a commission for it. Proof (a different pattern, but the choice is that we can find practically everyone):

The specificity of the product

I think 90% of Chinese wheels that pretend to be Zippy, Bory and other cool models are built on Novateca hubs. This makes it very easy to identify them, even from a distance. I have not seen the originals on such hubs yet. Generally, this is the first thing I look at when I want to identify the origin of the wheels and is usually enough. For example (in the title, of course, full carbon, the price is also suspiciously low):

In the case of Campagnolo wheels, it is a little easier - a lot of models have a characteristic backside. Know the product well before buying it. The said stitch, whether the nipples are outside, whether the manufacturer even releases such wheels in the version for the tire, whether the braking surface is also in him carbon, etc. If you think buying a well-known store in the center of the capital of a large country will be safe then look at this:

 Size Chart

I am quite tall - I have it easier. Many models exist u majfriendów in a sizeable size. A good way is to look at offers for the sought size, and then send them an email asking if they are sure they are not doing what we are looking for. In this way, I discovered that it is impossible to buy Cipollini RB1000 in size XL (at least it was about 2 years ago)

The proof of purchase

Obvious obviousness: if you buy a drug you should ask for any bike documents. I usually do not have them, because everything is lost to me, so I'm a loser on a good day. I can present an excerpt from the card showing that I used to pay in a bike shop some time and even if the amount and time are more or less the same, it's not everyone's convincing.

Everybody lies

Do you think if you buy in an online store, then you are safe? Nothing more wrong. Let's put ourselves in the role of an average Kowalski who wants to buy a gift for his nephew. He puts in "goggles", he clicks the first link in advance (and not sponsored): http://www.odziezdlakolarzy.pl/ and buys. Well great. The profile has from 4000 likes on Facebook, building a profile on reshare of other content. Hundreds of comments from satisfied people. I'm not surprised, these sets are cool - I bought one myself, like in this shop for PLN 250, only that I gave $ 30 on AliExpress. It's a "quinole" like here on Teide. SKY team outfit with Rapha logo for PLN 250, clear:

Go to the website

The way tested in the case of cars is also good for bikes. Any better service will be able to assess with a high probability whether the equipment is original. Not always and not at 100%, but often they are able to find classic, factory errors such as crooked holes for bottle cages, problems with the support area, with rudders, with a steerer tube or bridge, with internal cable routing. This is where the failures occur most often.

In the end, however, common sense is the most important thing. If you are not sure if someone sells the original, think whether you want to risk it. This is not even about the losses of big companies, about the fact that it is "almost the same and left the same factory", but that someone just makes you into a horse. He buys cheaply, sells expensive, cheats on the way, and earns the naivety of others without consequences. I will notice it, you will notice, but a thousand Sunday cyclists who wanted to become like their idol - Rafał Majka not necessarily.