Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
That is generally true with everything. Of course, I was making a joke.
Nearly everything is made in China, including things of very high quality.
As a tangent thought probably due to my ignorance of manufacturing, I always wonder why when given the option to make something of quality, or to make something as garbage, some choose garbage. Take bicycle components for example. Presumably the materials and part counts for a quality derailleur is similar to a poor derailleur. What is the extra cost to produce a quality derailleur compared to a poor one? Surely it's not 4x the cost given the basic design and materials are extremely similar.
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The designs can vary significantly, though--your typical department store bike has a derailleur that's not very similar to a Dura-Ace or SRAM Red. Also, when you get in to high-end bicycle components, people are willing to pay a lot more for components that are slightly lighter, so the market supports a lot of markup for higher-end components.
A few people on Slowtwitch have bought and built up knock-off carbon frames from Taiwan, where most high-end bike frames are made. Those are a crapshoot mostly because they aren't subject to the quality standards they have to meet to be marketed by the OEMs. So yes, you can get the "same" frame, but oftentimes it isn't finished correctly, there are alignment issues, , who knows how the carbon layup and material differs, etc. even though it came off the same assembly line and looks the same as the name-brand stuff.