{"id":6523,"date":"2022-03-10T18:17:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T23:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visualrealms.com\/?p=6523"},"modified":"2025-08-22T15:42:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T19:42:05","slug":"the-story-of-my-first-chinese-carbon-mountain-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visualrealms.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/10\/the-story-of-my-first-chinese-carbon-mountain-bike\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of My First Chinese Carbon Mountain Bike"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A brief backstory to help paint a picture of the madness. I went on my very first mountain bike ride on June 6, 2021. I had had an off-the-shelf DiamondBack hardtail sitting in my garage years in advance of this ride but had only ever used it for family bike rides locally or while camping. A buddy of mine, Steve, had asked me a few times prior if I wanted to do a mountain bike ride with him and his buddies and I had always declined. I wasn’t interested and moreover, I was a bit worried these “mountain bike guys” would push me way beyond my skill level, not to mention my lung capacity. Eventually, I agreed and on June 6, 2021, only Steve and I showed up for the ride; all the other real MTB guys bailed. Steve was semi-experienced but was rocking a vintage, titanium “hardtail” mountain bike with clamp-style brakes so he wasn’t really set up to be doing anything crazy. We had a good ride and did some “nar” but it was really mild compared to what was to come. Needless to say, I got hooked and wanted more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My 2013 DiamondBack Overdrive, which I bought new for $550, which seems like a steal in 2023, had a 3X drive train, hydraulic disc brakes (thankfully), a spring-loaded front fork setup, and not much more. Me being me, after doing some research, needed to make some changes to make the DiamodBack more respectable\/ridable so I took advantage of the cheap gear on AliExpress and picked up a Deore M4100 gear\/shifter<\/a> set to make my bike a 1X10 drivetrain. I paired it with a VUNDO Direct Mount 170mm Single Speed Mountain Bike Crankset<\/a> from Amazon and was ready for the trails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fast forward a few months, and after a few additional upgrades like tubeless tires, grips, pedals, a carbon fiber seat post (it was free), and several successful rides on the DiamondBack, it was time to get me a full-sus MTB. Being the frugal guy… OK, the cheap guy that I am, I shopped around for an affordable option but wasn’t finding something that included all of the components that I wanted. After doing a ton of research and creating several different spreadsheets to compare the costs of an off-the-shelf bike with lesser components or building my own with components that I wanted, I opted to go DIY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter the Chinese carbon MTB frame world. Ugh, where to begin? So much negativity on the internet with the Chinese carbon frames. I really wonder how many of the negative reviews come from actual users of the products. Either way, I ended up settling on the 130mm P1, trial frame from iCan<\/a>. Their reputation seemed solid, I wasn’t able to find many negative reviews that had any merit, and in general, they had a local USA representative that was responsive. Before I knew it I had ordered a Chinese carbon frame and was deep in research on everything else that I needed. First up, was the Marzocchi Bomber fork<\/a>. Lovely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The frame arrived in a cardboard box, packed relatively well, though the box certainly looked like it came from China. The frame was unscathed and looked more or less like it should. The finish was fine, although not super consistent. It came with all of the hardware they had promised, ie: rear axle, rear drop out, etc. Thin plastic tubes were routed throughout the frame so that you can pull brake\/shifter cables through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did have one minor issue with the rear shock mount. The spacing between the two mounting points wasn’t the same. I didn’t know any better so I had to reach out to the shock manufacturer and ask about two different size spacer-hardware kits and they advised me that the opening between the two mounting points should be the same. With that knowledge, I used a flat file to open up one of the mounting points so that it matched the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step was to secure the rest of the parts list; the dropper post, the brake calipers, the rotors, the wheels, the head, stem, bars, crank, pedals… OMG so many parts to source and confirm compatibility. About half of which I sourced from AliExpress, due to nothing being available in the US during the pandemic, but some did get sourced locally. Here’s the list of my build components and the links (unfortunately, some of the links are no longer valid so I will do my best to find similar parts):<\/p>\n\n\n\n