Chinese bike brands were once the butt of industry jokes. They were seen by many as producing cheap framesets, along with masses of counterfeits and poor-quality interpretations of the latest bike trends.
For decades, the technical excellence of the Taiwanese bicycle industry has gone unchallenged. However, plenty of Taiwanese brands and vendors (manufacturers) offshored manufacturing and assembly to mainland China, and the Chinese technical knowledge base has been expanding as a result.
China is also a huge market for high-end bicycles and accessories. Steven Nemeth, founder of 02C (a China-based cycle shoe brand), explains he had 20,000 premium bike shops across China targeted as stockists when he launched – that's only one example, but indicates that China isn't a market any brand can easily afford to dismiss.
Chinese brands are on an upwards trajectory in terms of quality, innovation and exposure, too. All the while, they maintain lower prices that have intrigued plenty of customers outside of the domestic Asian market.
A joke that’s become old
There are parallels between what’s happening in the Chinese bicycle market and what has happened in the Chinese car industry.
Back in 2012, Top Gear aired an episode that wasn’t much more than an hour-long mockery of Chinese cars. It was also filmed in China.
Today, the joke's on them because brands such as BYD, Jaecoo and Omoda are securing massive leaps in market share, especially here in the UK, where according to a report by The Guardian, 30% of the half a million Chinese car sales in Europe between January and September 2025 occurred.
China has overtaken Japan as the world’s largest exporter of cars according to a New York Times report from 2024. Meanwhile, the BBC stated in January this year that BYD has overtaken Tesla as the world’s largest EV seller.
It would be easy to argue that the heritage surrounding cycling and its halo brands, such as Colnago and Pinarello in Italy, Trek and Specialized in the US, and even Taiwanese icons Giant and Merida, will be enough for them to stay ahead of the emerging Chinese brands.
I’m sure the automotive press may have thought the same about Ford, Volkswagen, Renault, Fiat, et al.
Ollie Marriage, former head of car tests at Top Gear Magazine, suggests this is now an active marketing ploy for such brands: “What European car brands have realised rather too late in the day is that it’s pointless to try and compete with their Chinese counterparts on value or technology – they can build cars more cheaply and equip them with fancier screens and faster processors.
“But, on the whole, the cars coming out of China at the moment are rather bland, so European firms are refocusing on design and brand heritage in a bid to attract buyers.”
Back in 2018, Forbes warned US automotive manufacturers not to underestimate Chinese automakers. In February of this year, Ford CEO Jim Farley stated in a Bloomberg report that Chinese electric vehicles are now a "top tier" competitor, and after testing vehicles from brands such as Xiaomi, he noted they are "far superior" to Western counterparts.
I can easily foresee that we will see the same shift in the cycling market.
Nemeth, the founder of O2C shoes, lives in China. He is now also working with emerging brands such as 3D-printing specialist Samassi.
“From years of first-hand experience, I’ve seen how global perceptions often misrepresent Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands," he says. "The common assumption is that 'Made in China' means low-quality products and inferior materials. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Emerging brands
At the sharp end of road bikes, X-Lab’s AD9 is now ridden in the WorldTour by Astana, replacing the heritage brand Wilier as bike sponsor. Meanwhile, young British talent Harry Hudson won the junior Road World Championships aboard the Chinese Quick Pro AR:One.
There are plenty of other examples, including brands such as Winspace, Incolor and Tavelo, emerging on the scene.
Challenger brands such as L:Twoo and Wheeltop are making solid entries into the groupset world, offering wireless electronic shifting for a fraction of the price of Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo – alongside very affordable mechanical options.
Farsports has shifted from being an OEM (original equipment manufacturer, making its own-name components for international brands) to a standalone brand, making carbon bars, stems and aero wheelsets.
Similarly, Craft Racing Works (CRW) had been building wheelsets for other brands for a decade, but now stands on its own brand name. CRW provided Hudson's wheelset on his World Championships bike.
Lots of choices
The full scope of Chinese products is still largely unknown, but the emergence of collated and curated online stores such as Panda Podium is providing a good insight into emerging quality brands.
Panda Podium was founded by British ex-pat Joe Whittingham. Whittingham started out reporting on his YouTube channel, China Cycling.
Since then, he’s founded a business where he and his team test and evaluate bikes, components and kit from Chinese manufacturers. If they pass muster, they earn a listing on Panda Podium’s store.
Whittingham explains: “Since I started the YouTube channel in 2016, there's been a crazy change in the stuff coming out of China – the difference between Chinese products/brands now and 10 years ago is night and day.
“But first, we have to define what we mean when we say ‘Chinese bike’. If it's just something that's 'made in China', then around half the pro peloton is riding Chinese bikes as the mainstream Western brands have been using China and its factories for production for many years.”
Whittingham’s point on the pro peloton lays bare the issue Chinese brands face. We’ve had decades of brands clouding their manufacturing in mystery. However, it's become common thought that if something is made in Taiwan it represents high quality, whereas mainland China is seen as somewhat lesser in quality.
Whittingham continues: “In the early days, Western faces were a common sight in the factories as they worked on setting up the production lines and training the local engineers. As more and more brands moved production to mainland China, the local expertise and supply chain grew rapidly.”
Huge infrastructure
This upscaling in expertise is not restricted to carbon fibre factories. Even if you only consider the frame itself, there are a lot of pieces in that puzzle. There are engineering factories that make the moulds and those that make the EPS inserts common in frame construction. Then there are paint shops, water-transfer and decal manufacturers, small parts (grommets, bolts, thread inserts, dropouts) and more.
Carbon fibre itself is imported from Japan, with makers such as Toray being the most popular with high-end brands. But, in lots of cases, raw carbon fibre material is imported direct into China and turned into pre-impregnated resin rolls before being made into frames.
In today’s market, things have become more equal, Whittingham explains. “Chinese bikes is now a term that encompasses a huge range of products. Frames, for example, probably range from $600 for a no-brand ‘open mould’ frame to more than $4,000 for something [bespoke] like the Incolor SSR, an aero frame that weighs just 750g, but tests faster than a Cervélo S5 in the Silverstone wind tunnel.”
Whittingham says the the rise of the Chinese brands should also put pressure on Western brands to lower their prices. So, even if you don't plan on riding a Chinese bike, it's a win-win for everyone.
From maker to brand
It's a common thread for those I’ve spoken to that you can find the highest quality in China, providing you do your research.
For external (Western) brands working with Chinese manufacturers, it's all in the standards they ask for – everything is available for a price and it's not uncommon for factories to produce both low-end basic bikes and high-end technically advanced framesets.
The expertise on the ground is unquestioned – and if non-Chinese brands are prepared to pay for it, they can get products equal to anything produced across the water in Taiwan.
When it comes to the wider bike industry and the origin of products, Nemeth is quite forthright. “The vast majority of products sold in the cycling industry are either manufactured in China or rely on Chinese-made materials and components," he says.
“China’s manufacturing technology, engineering capability and production expertise are among the best in the world – and, in several categories, I would argue they’re truly world-leading. Their depth of experience in producing carbon-based consumer goods, in particular, is unmatched.”
But what about the transition of vendors (who manufacture on behalf of third-party brands) to brands in their own right? Is this where we are seeing the biggest change in quality?
“There are countless high-quality Chinese cycling brands that most Western consumers have never heard of, yet they produce some of the finest products I’ve encountered from any brand, anywhere," says Nemeth.
“As with every country, there will always be examples of lower-grade manufacturing, but this is not unique to China – it’s simply part of global production.”
'Chinese brands are just copying Western designs'
Historically, plenty of Chinese products were seen as simply ‘copies' of Western designs – remember the infamous Chinarello’s? The same was true of Chinese car design. However, that's no longer the case.
You can still see the influence of the most established brands on many Chinese designs. Incolor’s latest road bike, the SSR, certainly appears to have quite a bit of Cérvelo and Factor influence (Factor has its own China-based manufacturing).
However, you could say the same about many established Western brands' designs – it’s a common criticism of any new bike in the comments section on BikeRadar.
Really, it should be no surprise because CFD (computational fluid dynamics), wind-tunnel analysis and FEA (finite element analysis) is provided by commonly available software, and the same goals will logically drive similar results.
It’s only through great engineers pushing boundaries, working alongside talented industrial designers such as Torgny Fjeldskaar, whose creativity shaped iconic Cannondales and BMCs (and now his Fjeld consultancy is helping to style the Colnago bikes powered by Tadej Pogacar) that we see any stand-out, groundbreaking designs.
What the future holds
Where Chinese brands are now, compared to where they were just a few short years ago, is somewhat remarkable. Out have gone the copycat designs with poor-quality graphics and me-too parts, with today’s bikes capable of being raced at the highest level and looking better than ever.
Will we see Chinese brands in our brick-and-mortar stores? According to Panda Podium’s Whittingham, “That’s already happening, as RockBros has already done in Germany and the USA by opening their own retail outlets”.
Samassi, the 3D-printing specialist championed by Nemeth, is another Chinese brand looking to head west. Mike Ma, owner of Samassi, told me it is talking with agents globally for distribution and looking to sponsor top-level events. “In the future I believe there will be more Chinese brands standing in the Tour De France,” he says.
With the emergence of Panda Podium, I’d suggest we may also see one of the larger Chinese brands start a direct-to-consumer retail model.
I think that’s more likely than Chinese bike brands coming through traditional distribution models with the margins that add to the end retail pricing.
I’d predict that within the next decade we’ll also see Chinese brands atop World Tour podiums, under their own names and not because they’ve provided the manufacturing capabilities for the current podium-placing products. We will also see component brands such as Samassi, Farsports, L:Twoo and CRW in our bike shops.
After all, we’ve already seen Chinese brands winning world championships.
But whatever the future holds for these Chinese businesses, and how traditional brands react, the fact they are stepping out from behind the curtain of manufacturing for others is a bold step – and the first of many.
