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Knock off Shimano chains?


warpig's picture

By warpig - Posted on 22 March 2010

Anyone ever heard of counterfeit Shimano chains? I bought a CNHG73 from eBay and it looks very questionable: the stampings and riveting are far less perfect than they normally are for Shimano. It measures up OK, and is definitely a new bicycle chain (unfortunately the wrong bloody size: they mailed me an 8 speed...), but the attention to detail suggests a fake. Surely no one would bother?

I'll try and post an image if anyone's interested.

It was bloody cheap, by the way. Still, I think I might stick to T7 in future.

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Scottboy's picture

buy any lesser than xt chain in the first place

love4riding's picture

support your LBS !!!! nuf said

herzog's picture

Just noticed that T7 have the XTR's on special for $39 at the moment.

Scottboy's picture

local bike shop to drop there price & we will , they are there in emergency only

hawkeye's picture

are the go. Don;t waste your money on anything less.

Damien's picture

Thats funny hay ...name withheld... dont want to drop you in the shit.

warpig's picture

Sure XTR rip on the others, your LBS rules etc. etc. etc. etc., but that's not the question: if there are rip-off SLX chains there are sure as hell going to be knock-off XTRs as well. I am very interested in whether any dodgy operators are seriously copying Shimano chains. The main reason people seem to prefer the top shelf Shimano chains is that the lesser chains 'break'. I'm wondering if the real Shimano stuff is the culprit here at all. My experience with OEM-fitted, cheaper (ie. HG53) Shimano chains (correctly maintained, fitted and used) is very positive: could there be cheap copies floating around giving the real stuff a bad name?

BT's picture

Could be interesting to compare the weights between the potential knock-off and the real deal.

daveh's picture

Of course there are knock-off Shimano chains out there. You can be pretty much guaranteed that there are knock-offs of everything these days. Sites like flea-bay have just made it way to simple for people to flog off their dodgy wares. If you can get knock-off Canon camera equipment (you can) which you would imagine is fairly complicated and difficult to manufacture, then you sure and hell can get knock-off bike chains!

warpig's picture

Yeah: that's what I think too. I'm happy to have paid 15 bucks for it if its a fake, its a kind-of-cool example of how far things have gone. And I will get around to weighing it: nice idea. It looks quite accurate dimensionally.

Really? Knock off Canons? Bloody hell...what's next...Wiler copies?

daveh's picture

Tearing down the Cannonball Run would be a bad time to realise that your super-cheap shocks are knock-offs.

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