Is Aliexpress the Best Bike Shop? A Guide to Aliexpress

If you decide you're finally brave enough to buy cycling equipment from Aliexpress, you may as well be prepared.
Here's my Aliexpress buyer's guide for cyclists:

Bike shit is expensive.

And I suppose you can only relate to that statement depending on your level of wealth, but to my main body of readers -- collegiate cyclists -- all of you know the financial pain that comes from buying something for your bike.

Admittedly, when I'm working at a bike shop and have to tell a customer that a few aluminum headset spacers cost $10, or that a pair of gloves is $30 -- I cringe. 

And it's not just because it's expensive -- it's because it's expensive, and there is a website that could possibly solve that problem. 

I introduce Aliexpress: a somewhat sketchy Chinese-based website that boasts a large variety of products for low cost.

Now before you impulsively head to the website or roll your eyes and stop reading because you think that Aliexpress has a bad rap -- I'm going to explain why Aliexpress can be good, the risks involved, tips for buying items, and list some of the products I've bought on a document at the bottom of the page: the winners, losers, and absolute stinkers.

"What is Aliexpress?"

Upon seeing the name of the website, readers might immediately think of Alibaba -- a Chinese E-Commerce website which has similarly sketchy dealings and indefinite shipping times. 

Alibaba owns Aliexpress, and they work in similar ways, but have different purposes; Alibaba is a B2B site for wholesale resellers -- customers purchase lots of stock in one item with the intention of reselling. 

Aliexpress allows independent brands, vendors, and factories to sell their products on the website. The vendors deal with individuals, meaning that in most cases, a single unit of an item is bought -- and very cheaply.

In terms of the cycling-related products offered, they carry anything imaginable; there's kit, every kind of component for your bike, tools... you name it, it's going to be on there.

But because there are so many sellers with vague origins and random products for sale, the site can be tricky to navigate, and it's hard to know if products are good or not.

I'm making this guide with the hope that you can effectively navigate the site, determine what products might be good to buy, and most importantly: save money.

"What makes Aliexpress good?"

Like I said: it saves money (if it's used it right). But it's more than just saving money -- it can make an expensive sport like cycling more accessible by lowering the cost of entry.

In my case, Aliexpress is making the sport more inclusive to someone in the younger demographic who doesn't have post-graduate adult money.

I already mentioned the new $14,000 Specialized Tarmac SL8 in a previous post (Four Easy (and cheap) Ways to Become a Faster Little 500 Cyclist), but to reinforce the view that cycling has become too expensive and too high a cost of entry, there's another example that hit the market late last month.

The L39ion of Los Angeles cycling team, in collaboration with their sponsor Rapha, publicly released a special edition team jersey for the all-inclusive price of $245. 

There are a lot of ways I could criticize L39ion's and their release of this jersey, but we'll just focus on that absurd price for now.

L39ion or not, releasing merchandise with a price tag like this can effectively discourage people from joining the sport. 

There are plenty of non-essential overpriced cycling products on the market, too: like Ceramicspeed's $800 over-sized pulley wheels, Silca's $25 titanium bottle cage bolts, or a standard sleeveless base layer from Le Col for $64.

Aliexpress has all of those non-essentials for much less than other companies generally advertise, meaning that people can get both basic items and bling for cheap, too.

"What are the risks?"

While thus far I've painted Aliexpress as a Godsend for us without heaps of cash , it's not foolproof. There are risks, and I want to share some of those before giving everyone free reign to buy..

The main risks I want to highlight are sources and quality control, shipping, and disclosure of payment info to unknown sources.

Sources and Quality Control

Many of the cycling products found on Aliexpress are often "OEMs," which is when when a factory recreates a name-brand product by using similar molds and manufacturing processes, and then sell them on their own -- often much cheaper than the name-brand, which is good for us.

One such example is back in early 2022 when OEM Cane Creek EE brakes started popping up on Aliexpress, nearly identical in appearance and function to the name brand. 

Cane Creek was obviously not happy about their product being manufactured and sold for $640 less than MSRP. You can find some more information about the matter through some forums and research, but one opinion that I align with is that there are minute differences between the two that don't justify the $640 price increase for a set.

But this also means that OEMs and similar products from overseas don't go through the same manufacturing, QC, or standard-setting that name brands will have.

On the other hand, sometimes products that don't have QC will turn out to be good -- it's just so hard to know until the item arrives and is used.

That being said, steer clear of bike parts that bare weight and torque; it will be more expensive in the long-run because of the required dental work you'll have to get when the component inevitably snaps and your teeth hit the ground.

Bike frames, brakes, wheels, carbon handlebars, carbon stems, carbon seatposts, cranks, and other similar parts should be off-limits.

                                          

Money wasted, but teeth saved. Luckily this person's unbranded Aliexpress handlebars failed while in the repair stand and not when bombing a hill at 45mph.

This poor person set their torque wrench to just 4NM when attaching the bars, cracking them in the process. Most branded carbon handlebars I've used have a torque recommendation of 5-7NM -- meaning that the name-brands are thicker and sturdier (they'll also come with warranties). 

Go to the reviews of almost any carbon handlebar on Aliexpress and you're bound to find responses like this. It's a great example of those Chinese QC and safety standards at work.

*Tip: While most carbon parts (wheels, handlebars, saddles, seatposts) from Aliexpress are sketchy, branded aluminum parts are a safe bet. I highly recommend UNO-branded aluminum components -- they are JnB's (most bike shops' source for bulk parts) house brand, but can still be found on Ali. I run UNO Kalloy stems on all of my bikes, and bought an UNO aluminum seatpost and set of handlebars for my 1988 Trek 660 Resto-mod.

Brand-labeled aluminum is a pretty safe bet.

*All of the Aliexpress products and companies I've had success with will be listed in a Google Doc below.

Shipping

Wout and MVDP have been CX rivals for years... hopefully the shipping time isn't the same...

When your product comes from a vague location overseas with shoddy tracking updates, it's hard to know when the purchase will arrive.

To be fair, I have had no problems receiving items unless I was at fault (I had a change of address that I didn't confirm with USPS), and within the last few years, the tracking updates and shipping times have improved significantly (most packages arrive within 2-3 weeks).

But the real problems arise if a package does get lost. Generally, the seller will not take responsibility for the lost package, and the buyer will have to do some digging in order to find where the package was shipped to and which parcel service (USPS/DHL/UPS/FEDEX) held the package at the time of disappearance.

If a buyer can't find this information and Aliexpress denies an appeal, then the buyer will just be out of luck.

Thankfully, vendors on the website won't receive their payout from Aliexpress until the item is marked as "signed for" on the app, so if a buyer can track down a package before it's shown as delivered/signed-for, a refund will be easier to acquire.

And sometimes, if a vendor is reputable enough, they'll send out a free replacement if a package does not arrive.  

The app will very poorly translate my English to the seller's native language, so in order to have an accurate translation on the seller's end, I am responding with the lexicon of a five-year-old.

The one time when a package did get lost (and it wasn't my fault), the vendor sent me another for a penny. I coughed up the cent and received a replacement a couple weeks later -- all was right again. 

*Tip: set your shipping location to a permanent address -- like a house with a mailbox or place of work. The package will go directly into a mailbox or your/a coworker's hand, which could save you the time and effort of tracking down a stolen or locally misplaced item.

Disclosure of Payment Information

I've never heard of anyone getting card information stolen or experienced it firsthand, but I don't doubt that it can happen.

We are dealing with foreign vendors who we can't personally talk to or know, and are trusting them with some of our information.

On Aliexpress, vendors can quickly pop up, set up a store on the website, and then dip -- which may mean that some grab card information from customers and then promptly leave the site.

That's why it's best to look at the validity of an Aliexpress store or product before purchasing something. If it has a solid amount of purchases and good reviews, it's probably a vendor you can trust.

And if you are super paranoid, you can pay with a Visa gift card and give a shipping address that isn't yours (place of work).

When I purchase stuff I use a variation of my name -- I don't know if it helps prevent sellers from using my card info, but it hasn't happened yet.

"How do I know what to buy?"

Finally, now that all the risks have been listed, we can get into the fun stuff: how to buy from Aliexpress.

When I am searching for a product, I look for three metrics: branding, popularity, and reviews.

These three things help me know if a store is reputable, how many times an item has been bought by customers, and what the item is like from other customers' point of view.

Branding

As mentioned before, there are lots of sellers that come and go for various reasons. 

They may be producing and selling one-offs of a name brand and have to take down their Aliexpress page when they are found out, they might be taking user information, or perhaps they just have very low quality product that isn't being bought. By looking at the seller's page and professionality, we can tell if they will be good to buy parts from.

At a glance, you can usually tell if a product is good or not based on the quality of the advertising and the history of the shop's official page.

If I was given the choice between these two products, I'd go with the Ryet saddle -- it's branded with a niche company, which means there is some form of structure and standards within the brand.

*Tip: If you are going to take a risk and purchase a carbon component, make sure it has branding on it -- not components with phony branding (like a $400 frame with the Pinarello logo on it) or no-name. If a company has enough trust in their own product to put their logo on it, it's probably better quality and they might take some level of responsibility if the product fails.

Generally, the best brands will have their own official store ("Liteskin Official", "LTwoo Official" "Kactus"), with lots of history of dealing on the site.

For some really great videos on LTWOO and other Aliexpress products, you can check out TraceVelo on YouTube.

On the official LTWOO Aliexpress store, we can see some important metrics that tell us that this seller is reputable.

The LTWOO page shows a solid following of 5,200 users, has a large volume of products sold within the last 6 months, and has had their store on Aliexpress for over three years. 

These points of information and a few others can help us determine my next important metric: popularity.

Popularity 

When scrolling through products, there are often many variations of a component -- sometimes they are even identical.

In the case of these seatpost collars, there is a carbon collar on the left, and titanium on the right. Even though we can obviously see the differences in price and material, we can also see how many units of each item has been sold, and this can tell us a few things about the vendor and product.

For the carbon seatpost collar, there are only 6 units sold. This shows that the item probably hasn't been up for sale on Aliexpress for long. 

The titanium seatpost collars show over 700 units sold, meaning that this item has been on Aliexpress for a while, that the vendor is probably pleasant to work with, and that the product is good. Looking at the listing, we can also see that it is "top selling" and has priority shipping over other items.

Also, because there are so many of the titanium seatpost collars sold, it means there will likely be many reviews -- much more than the carbon seatpost collar listing -- and that we can see for ourselves what the product is like from the consumer POV.

Reviews

In my experience, reviews are your best friend. 

Listings might have good pictures, (questionable) scientific data supporting their product, or unbeatable prices, but the only way to know if something is legit is through reviews and customer feedback. If you click on a product and scroll down, you can see the reviews. 

In the case of the carbon seatpost with only six units sold; there is only one rating with no review. Because there is no solid customer feedback to go off of, I would likely avoid it.

As for the titanium seatpost collar, it looks like there are 15 ratings on it, along with some submitted photos from customers. I would likely buy this seatpost collar because it has over 700 units sold and there is good customer feedback.

As a tight aero base layer, it's hot garbage, but I bet some fashion designers would eat this thing up. 

This is a case where reviews really matter. 

The listing photo shows a base layer with an elastic/lycra material. Rule28 and HUUB are some name-brand versions of this and look very similar to this listing.

However, the guy on the right got the base layer in the mail and found it was completely different than what was advertised. He took a risk and it didn't work out, but luckily, it means that we know to avoid buying this base layer.

*Tip: look for reviews where the user has tried the product. Often times, someone will open up the box and submit a review prior to actually using it. I also tend to look for clear language.

Now let's look at another product altogether:

Because it's Winter, I'm interested in shoe covers to keep my feet warm when I ride outside.

I found a listing for these "Giyo" shoe covers:

It looks like these are top-rated by Aliexpress, they have improved shipping time, and have over 3,000 units sold -- which means there are likely lots of customer reviews to look at.

There are a solid 433 reviews submitted, with many of them adding photos and descriptions.

They mention sizing, material quality, and even describe the amount of warmth they retain in their feet when riding.

Based on the reviews, I would likely buy these to use in colder weather.

Outside Research

Even though I find it hard not to get sucked into the rabbit hole of Aliexpress products, research, and reviews, I find it helpful to do other research outside of the website.

It's also a good idea to do research outside of the Aliexpress site -- there are some great videos on Aliexpress products by TraceVelo and ChinaCycling on Youtube (links will be in the "resources" category at the bottom of the guide).

The last place I've found decent reviews and accounts of Aliexpress products are on forums.

Reddit sometimes has posts -- but I usually have better luck on forums like WeightWeenies.

If it's a product with enough traction and popularity, a Google search might turn up some forum posts or outsider reviews.

Discounts and Sales

Now that we know to find a listing with good branding, look at the amount of units sold, and check the reviews, we're ready to buy.

But there are still a couple ways to knock down that Aliexpress price even further.

Coins

Using "coins" can be a great way to save a buck or two.

Coins are collected on your account by either purchasing an item or completing a "daily check-in" on your profile page. A few of the coins are then automatically added to a purchase at checkout. The difference they make is usually minimal, but over time it could save a few dollars.

The first person to comment "I'm sweaty" will receive a free sweat guard once it arrives in the mail.

I recently purchased a sweat guard for indoor training, and I saved a whopping 19 cents using coins... 

 

Sales

You'd think that with prices so low, there's now way Aliexpress could promote a sale...

Usually Aliexpress will have small promotions on the website, but every so often there will be a site-wide sale.

Recently, they had a two-week-long "11-11" sale for November 11th. Currently, there is a Black Friday sale.

Similar to coins, the savings through these site-wide sales are minimal, but you can certainly save a few dollars if you wait to purchase a few items at the same time.

My favorite discounts, however, come from the "your choice" promotion, which can usually be seen at the front page of the website.

The "your choice" promotion on the front page... I guess if you need to restock on chicken leashes this is a good time (?).

The "your choice" promotion items are small items that are heavily discounted from their original price. They also offer a "buy three, get one free" sale every so often.

If I am in need of a few small items, like gloves, headset spacers, or TPU tubes -- the "your choice" promotion is the perfect opportunity to restock for a very low price.

I still make sure to use the aforementioned criteria to assess these items before purchasing, but if you're feeling risky and don't check reviews before buying a "your choice" item -- losing the buck or two if it doesn't work out probably won't sting too bad.

Recommended (and not recommended) Items:

Here, I'll list some items that I recommend, don't recommend, and some middle-of-the road purchases that may or may not work out.

Recommended Items:

Brand-labeled metal components:

As mentioned before, brand-labeled aluminum parts have worked pretty well for me. I've bought many UNO Kalloy stems, and purchased UNO bars and a seatpost for my Trek 660 road bike. Aluminum seatpost collars, some aluminum/titanium skewers, and stem caps have been good in my experience, too.

It's unlikely that these aluminum parts can fail, as they are from a reputable company and are made from metal. 

I have also heard good things about Tito Titanium components.

Various Accessories

(Cycling caps, gloves, socks, shoe covers, base layers, saddle bags, bells, computer mounts, TPU tubes, some brands of sunglasses)

None of these products will compromise safety, and I'd say that they are hard to mess up in production.

The cycling caps, gloves, socks, base layers, and shoe covers are going to be made from stretchy material, which makes sizing a near non-issue as long as you check the sizing charts and are in range of the recommendation.

Saddle bags aren't going to compromise safety, and I think there's a good variety on the site -- both mass-produced and some really boutiquey hand-crafted bags, too.

Niche-brand sunglasses like KAPVOE are nice. 

I've found that getting good knock-offs of name brands like Oakley and 100% are hard unless there are reviews. The really good knock-offs with genuine-looking logos will often set up shop, get found out, and promptly be taken off the website -- which means there will almost never be reviews. 

The two times I have bought brand-labeled knockoffs, it paid off really well.

These were some AWESOME Kato replicas from Aliexpress. They came with an Oakley carrying case, a microfiber bag, and a microfiber cloth. Unfortunately I lost these, but luckily I was only out $20.

These were the Oakley replicas I bought after losing the Katos. They have Oakley branding and emblems, came with a carrying case, three lenses, and a microfiber cloth. I bought these in February of 2023 for $30 and they are still my go-to riding glasses nine months later.

Bells, computer mounts, headset spacers  -- again, simple accessories and hard to mess up -- just check the reviews before you buy.

RideNow TPU tubes -- if you've done some research and decide you want to try lightweight TPU tubes, Aliexpress has RideNow tubes for pretty cheap - much cheaper than Amazon, even.

*If you have products to recommend, you can comment below with the product and/or link!

"Middle-of-the-Road" Items

Kit

Kit has always been hit-or-miss for me. I love the gloves, aero socks, base layers, sunglasses, and cycling caps as mentioned before... but the jerseys, bibs, and skinsuits haven't been too great.

Even with reviews, it's hard to tell the quality, fabric, and sizing until you get to see the jersey in-person.

Plus, Asian clothing sizes are very different from American sizes, so if you don't check the sizing chart listed on the product page, or if the sizing chart is inaccurate, you're likely going to get a very badly-fitting piece of kit.

In most American kit, I've always been an xs, or sized down into a 2xs in some cases. But the kits I've ordered on Aliexpress have often needed to be size L -- very confusing!

And with the chamois on bibs and skinsuits... all the ones I've tried are crap -- especially for long-distance riding.

It's a serious risk trying to find good kit with the material and fit that you want... but if you do find one, then you're set! It just might take a few tries and a couple Benjamins to find out.

Lights

They often boast an inaccurate lumen count, lack on battery life, and can have a bad spread of light.

Skewers

I've actually had great success with skewers offered on the site. They have some super lightweight skewers -- some pairs as little as 40 grams.

The only reason I don't highly recommend these is because of the weight that they bare. 

I am decently light at only 63kg -- the skewers have worked well for me, but anyone who is heavier might steer clear of the uber weight-weenie skewers.

Tools

There are some pretty useful tools on Aliexpress, and some that can hurt your bike more than it'll help.

Many tools listed on Aliexpress won't have high QC standards. Allen keys might be too small and round out bolts. Torque wrenches might not have a correct settings, and could over or under-torque bolts.

To be fair, I haven't had much experience with tools on Aliexpress...  most of mine are Pedros, Unior, and Park Tool, and have given me no reason to try out Aliexpress' offerings, anyway.

OSPWs

I've bought a few OSPW cages from Aliexpress.

Unfortunately with these, there is a lot of nuance between OSPWs to do with compatibility, configuration, and parts.

Some boast ceramic bearings but don't have a rubber seal bearing, meaning grit can encroach on the ceramic balls and ruin any frictionless gains you thought you might get.

Some of the cages are plastic instead of carbon -- I've found that with the Ceramicspeed knockoffs. Luckily, there's not too much torque being driven through the jockey wheels on the drive train, so you could probably get away with it. Still, I'd be wary.

TraceVelo on Youtube has an awesome video on off-brand OSPWs, and talks about setup, rs689 bearings, and his overall experience with the product.

I currently run an Aliexpress RaceWorks Ceramics carbon OSPW on my Merlin road bike, and a knockoff aero CeramicSpeed OSPW on my Litespeed Blade TT bike.

I've had some small problems with the CeramicWorks OSPW in the past like a jockey wheel bending and a bearing needing replaced, but it's have worked well for the amount of miles I've put on it -- I have 11,000 miles on the RaceWorks Ceramics OSPW as of this post.

Bottle Cages

Bottle cages are generally good -- just do some research.

I bought a CarbonWorks knockoff bottle cage from Aliexpress (you can see one of them on my road bike in the above picture).

They're super lightweight and function like they should, but expand over time, meaning bottles like to bounce out after heavy usage.

I'm sure there are some other great cages on the site. I've heard good things about the Bontrager knockoffs.

The Stinkers

Thankfully, I am not listing these as bad products because of personal experience of them exploding -- I'm recommending you stay away for safety reasons.

For a lot of these parts I'm about to list -- you won't know that they're bad unless/until they fail, and by then, it's too late.

Most Carbon Stuff

I mentioned most of these before, but frames, wheels, brakes, cranks, carbon bars, carbon stems, carbon seatposts, and carbon handlebars should be avoided.

Any product that bares weight or is put under torque creates a risk of injury.

That isn't to say that people haven't had success with buying and using these parts from Aliexpress.

Francis Cade on Youtube put out a video on a friend's all Aliexpress bike, which was ridden for 20,000 miles and raced at the British road race nationals. 

However, earlier this year, the bike was in a rainy race, and Harry (the bike's owner) crashed due to the brake tracks on his wheel being worn and delaminated.

Still... 20,000 miles is very impressive.

On the other hand, Francis Cade posted another Aliexpress bike build video, where he built up a lightweight all Aliexpress bike and deemed it unsafe to ride.

So you can purchase and use these items, but for the sake of safety and longevity, I would stick to small accessories on the website.

My Purchases

I'm no wiz with Excel, so here's a Google doc instead.

I've listed my purchases here -- most of the good ones, a couple iffy ones.

If you're only going to get a couple things from the list, I'd highly recommend the base layers, gloves and aero socks.

Resources

TraceVelo Youtube

TraceVelo does videos on Aliexpress and Chinese bike parts. Most of his bikes are built with all Aliexpress parts, and documents his successes and epic fails.

China Cycling Youtube

Another Youtube channel based on Chinese componentry. Joe is a British guy who moved to China and also has a business called PandaPodium, which is a distributor for the renowned component manufacturers in China.

Conclusion

So that's the guide! 

I hope I've cleared up some of the controversy that is Aliexpress, and I hope that you're prepared to make some awesome purchases -- just don't get too excited, because that shipping is going to take a while.

If you have some experience with Aliexpress that you think would be helpful to myself or other readers, please shoot a comment below.

Recap // TL;DR

(You lazy heathens... here is a quick summary:)

Buying parts from overseas and from unknown origins can be sketchy.

Some risks you will be taking by purchasing from Aliexpress are standards and QC, shipping, and disclosure of payment information.

Because many Aliexpress items are OEMs, they don't have the same QC that name-brands have. You'll want to stay away from flimsy/carbon parts and accessories that bare weight and torque. There's no way of knowing if it's dangerous to use until it's broken.

Shipping takes a while -- usually two to three weeks. If a package doesn't arrive, it's up to you to track it down, get information from the shipping service (USPS, UPS, Fedex) that had the item at the time of misplacement, and send in an appeal to Aliexpress. I have only had one package lost throughout all my purchases, and it was resolved by the seller who generously sent a new one (most sellers usually wouldn't).

If you're scared of some dude overseas taking your info, use a variation of your name (Bob Night instead of Bobby Knight) and pay with a prepaid Visa gift card. I haven't experienced anyone from Aliexpress taking my card info, and haven't heard anyone who has had that experience either, but I don't doubt that it can happen.

When purchasing an item, you'll want to do some research. Look for good branding (not a plain photo of a product with no-name, or a product with phony branding -- like a $400 frame with "Pinarello"), the amount of units sold (higher is better, and it means the store has been around for a while and customers like the product), and reviews.

Reviews are going to be the only way to see what a product is like from the consumer point of view, so if you don't want to take a risk on a product, make sure you see what others have to say. You can find out sizing, material, quality, seller communication, and more from these reviews.

Finally, I listed out some of the products I recommend, don't recommend, and also some parts that are middle-of-the-road. Go check out the Google Doc of items that I have purchased.