# WARNING to Ritchey WCS fork owners...



## SDizzle

I noticed a small crack in my Ritchey WCS fork about three weeks ago. It looked like it was entirely clearcoat, but if the clearcoat was cracking, the carbon was flexing. Not good.

Anywhoo, long story short, Ritchey won't do anything, which doesn't really surprise me. I bought the fork on eBay, not really thinking at the time that it might be another eBay something that fell off the truck in Taiwan. Ritchey is a good company, and I figured they would want to protect their name as badly as they SHOULD want not to have their name emblazoned on stolen goods. No dice, but I understand. At least I only paid $180 or so dollars for it.

After I the Ritchey off, I let me curiosity get the best of me and put the dropout in a vice. I was surprised at how _little_ leverage it took to get it off. It just went crack, and there was the pulling-of-fibers sound.

If you own one of these forks, keep an eye on it, but don't bother asking Ritchey for help: we exchanged many friendly emails, and an industry friend of mine even went to chat with them at Sea Otter, all to no avail. Oddly, Ritchey told me that the legit version of the WCS fork has "no aluminum in the dropout whatsoever," which I know to be hooey. Excel is spec'cing these on their 1-2 team issue bikes this year, and theirs are identical to mine. Somebody is lying, but I'm tired of trying to deal with it.

So I replaced it with a fork I've always wanted, and a front end that will match the stiffness of my frame. Half a pound gained - lots of worries, gone.


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## JaeP

*Glued to get her*

Personally, that's why I'll never own a carbon fiber bike. Anyways, there's a story of a Dr. here in Sandy Eggo who went on a bike ride on Thanksgiving when he had a carbon fiber fork "malfunction" and was killed.


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## rufus

wow, that Wound-Up fork is only 74 grams lighter than my Mondonico steel fork.


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## rubicon_nm

I'd be curious if the other dropout comes off as easy.

Mike


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## cocoboots

SDizzle said:


> Ritchey told me that the legit version of the WCS fork has "no aluminum in the dropout whatsoever," which I know to be hooey. Excel is spec'cing these on their 1-2 team issue bikes this year, and theirs are identical to mine. Somebody is lying, but I'm tired of trying to deal with it.



Ritchey is correct. the wcs fork has no full aluminum dropout. the excel team bikes are using the Ritchey WCS fork and they do not have full aluminum tabs. Sounds like you got a bad ebayer....


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## SDizzle

rufus said:


> wow, that Wound-Up fork is only 74 grams lighter than my Mondonico steel fork.


Yeah, no kidding. I just wrote to WU and the eBay seller from whom I bought it to find out if it's the tandem model. The rake and A-C compare to the Ritchey, so it's not incredibly wierd. But yes, it is HEAVY.

And as far as steel goes...it was either buy a Wound Up now, or wait for custom steel. I'm glad I didn't wait - for sure - but I'm still looking into a nice steel fork. I've only ridden this fork once, but I must say: Wound Up is the steel of carbons. This sh!t is STIFF. I haven't felt steering so precise since the Surly Instigator fork I had on my rigid SS MTB!

And cocoboots - the last time I rode with some of the Excel guys, they had forks with the same aluminum faces as mine. Still carbon dropouts, but covered in a thin layer of aluminum. Maybe I should swing by the shop?


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## cocoboots

i pulled the info from their own website, so i wouldn't know for a fact. Just going on what they say they ride.
http://excelsportscycling.com/index.php?id=equipment

but then again, you may be privy to more accurate info than their site as you ride with them and i'm 6 states away and don't know them.

have you complained to the ebayer? why not have your industry friend warranty it for you? my local shop warranties ridiculous things for people who spend lots of cash with them, so i'm sure your industry friend could just slip it in on a claim or whatever they do.


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## wheel_suker

*Ebay dude?*

The seller you purchased was not by chance "sting303"? I see he always sells a lot of Ritchey stuff on Ebay.


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## fisherman

That is the risk with Ebay. You do not have any recourse with the manufacturer unless you bought it off an official dealer with receipts (on Ebay). The LBS is of course the way to go for up close and personal relationships. 

I thought everyone knew that?


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## golzy

*just curious*

SDizzle-

Was the fork listed as used or new when you bought it from eBay?


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## FTF

SDizzle said:


> I noticed a small crack in my Ritchey WCS fork about three weeks ago. It looked like it was entirely clearcoat, but if the clearcoat was cracking, the carbon was flexing. Not good.


How many times did you go down on that fork?


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## SDizzle

It was brand new, uncut. It was not in factory packaging. And yes, the seller was Sting303, Ritchey knows about him, and I don't know just what they plan on doing. There is recourse they can take through the proper channels at eBay, but I think they might first have to prove they were stolen. To anyone who bought one of these, I would recommend not riding it anymore (duh). Big bummer, I know. I'm not really in a position (student) just to throw away $180 here and there, but sometimes this is how the chips fall.

I laid the bike down twice with the Ritchey fork, but neither were at speeds higher than 8mph or so, and in both I just sort of fell over. Never hit anything with it. I can safely say that a crash is NOT the source of this, though I'm still not sure what is. I inspected the Excel forks again at a race yesterday, and they do in fact look identical to mine. Not sure what Ritchey is thinking there. To reiterate - the dropouts ARE carbon (as advertized), but they have an aluminum face. Good luck to all you other Ritchey WCS fork owners - if you're looking for a replacement, Wound Up rocks! (As far as the weight goes, I'm pretty sure I got the tandem model. The regular model really is about 440g.)


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## drjones96

In appearance it looks like the real deal Ritchey WCS Carbon Fork from their website. When you spin it in 3-D it appears to have the same contours as the one in your photo on the scales.

Did Ritchey have soem early releases of their forks with alloy dropouts possibly?


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## SDizzle

drjones96 said:


> In appearance it looks like the real deal Ritchey WCS Carbon Fork from their website.


No kidding. That's why I think Ritchey is lying to me. One more time... The dropouts on my fork are NOT aluminum. They ARE carbon. They DO have aluminum faces. The current retail model - which I think mine actually is - ALSO HAS aluminum dropout faces, over CARBON dropouts. Just like mine. As a slight aside, the current Ritchey Pro fork has ALL ALUMINUM dropouts; mine is different from this model.


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## drjones96

SDizzle said:


> No kidding. That's why I think Ritchey is lying to me. One more time... The dropouts on my fork are NOT aluminum. They ARE carbon. They DO have aluminum faces. The current retail model - which I think mine actually is - ALSO HAS aluminum dropout faces, over CARBON dropouts. Just like mine. As a slight aside, the current Ritchey Pro fork has ALL ALUMINUM dropouts; mine is different from this model.


OK well if you would like to make a distinction between aluminum dropouts and aluminum inserts that's up to you. I don't really see the difference. It's still aluminum bonded to carbon (in your case: not bonded) and you are still clamping your skewer to an aluminum dropout.

But tell me this. Have you held a WCS and a PRO fork in your hands and been able to tell them apart? As best I can tell the forks are identical in appearance with the exeption of the decals and the dropouts. Decals can be altered.

PRO:
http://www.excelsports.com/new.asp?...n+Fork+Pro&vendorCode=RITCHEY&major=1&minor=3

WCS:
http://www.excelsports.com/new.asp?...n+Fork+WCS&vendorCode=RITCHEY&major=1&minor=3


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## drjones96

Your ebayer "sting303" is from Taiwan. He is also no longer an ebay member. At least not under his old name. He's made a buck and now he's moving on. 

My guess is he's close to the operation where they actually produce the forks and got his hands on some rejects or some "mislabled" PRO forks and was selling the stuff off for way more than he had in it.

Edit: Reviewed selling history. The one negative comment that he had was in January this year concerning a fork. I'd be this was one like yours and had a similar problem. Here's a quote:

Comment: Fork damaged by seller, distributor or Ritchey. Seller would not exchange/refund
Reply by sting303: help has been offered... but buyer not interested...

I just wonder what sort of help he offered. I doubt it was helpful help.


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## cocoboots

why take the risk buying something from taiwan when you know the manufacturer isn't going to provide support? you say you work for a bike builder, so i'm guessing it's dean since that is what your bike is....so why didn't you just get a fork through ritchey direct or something from quality. you can't place blame on ritchey for this one...

if you buy ebay it's not their responsibility to support the product; that's why they have dealers. sorry to hear about your situtation, it sucks to have to buy another fork.


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## alienator

SDizzle said:


> No kidding. That's why I think Ritchey is lying to me. One more time... The dropouts on my fork are NOT aluminum. They ARE carbon. They DO have aluminum faces. The current retail model - which I think mine actually is - ALSO HAS aluminum dropout faces, over CARBON dropouts. Just like mine. As a slight aside, the current Ritchey Pro fork has ALL ALUMINUM dropouts; mine is different from this model.


Why would Ritchey lie to you? How does that help them? Ritchey has been, by all accounts, a stand up company, so lying would only serve to damage their reputation. You're the rocket scientist that bought the fork from some guy in Taiwan. You know nothing of the history of that fork, whether it was a factory reject that someone made off with, or was otherwise damaged. Don't blame Ritchey for your decisions.

What's really nice is that you post some warning about Ritchey WCS forks as if you have some absolute knowledge that there was a problem on Ritchey's end. Hmmmmm. A lot of spray, but so very little substance you've offered.

_*Caveat emptor*_ seems to be the phrase that works best here.


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## Ramjm_2000

*Why not a Ti fork?*

This would be a pretty sweet option. It's rebadged Chi-ti (xacd) but it's backed by spicer which I've heard good things about. 

http://www.spicercycles.com/index.cgi?cat=2&sub_cat=Forks&prod_id=216&cat_desc=Road

Just a thought


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## jeremyb

more on this here:

http://weightweenies.starbike.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15894&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0


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## drjones96

jeremyb said:


> more on this here:
> 
> http://weightweenies.starbike.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15894&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0


You're Welcome.


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## Insight Driver

*Warning to Ebay buyers of knockoff forks*

Note the topic title I used for this is how this thread should have been labled. Based on the ongoing thread over on the weight weenies site, clearly, you were screwed, dude. That's not a legitimate Ritchey fork. It's either a reject or counterfiet that you bought. You are wrong in thinking you should get any consideration from Ritchey for your pain. It was your mistake, so suck it up and move on.


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## drjones96

I started the thread on weightweenies. And here's what I learned.

The real deal Ritchey forks DO have aluminum dropouts that have been painted over to make those not "in the know" think they are full carbon.

The representatives at Ritchey apparently are unaware of this fact.

There were possibly early releases of this fork that did not have paint over the aluminum dropouts.

Sting303 is likely very close to the Ritchey manufacturing facility or KNOWS someone who is. Sting303 could be based out of anywhere in the world and have people in Taiwan ship his goods anywhere to ebay buyers. And Actually Sting303 is no longer in existance and will soon be conducting buisiness under a new identity.

I believe the forks that Sting303 was/is slinging are actually produced by the same facility as Ritchey but are either factory rejects or produced with lower quality....hence failure above.


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## Friction_Shifter

I like the look and design of the wound up fork. It kind of reminds me of my fat chance yo eddy mtn bike fork(sweet sweet sweet).


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## DIRT BOY

*A smiliar thing happended with Schwalbe MTB tires...*

on ebay and ediscount.com ebay store and thier site.
They were selling Schwalbe tres for $20 each for tires that had a MSRP of $50

These tires were then falling apart after a few miles and soem were fine.

Pleasople bithcing and hollering like hell @ Schwalbe because they were failing and why I was selling $20 tires @ $50.

it tuned out that some of these were factory rejects and someone at the Schwalbe factory in Indonesia was stealing the rejects and good tires and dumping them on eBay and other discount chains.

Should Schwalbe warraty these tires? NO, *but *once they got calls from dealers and consumers with complaints they should have posted a warning on thier site about this. This brought a sour not to a lot of people and hurt their brand image for a while.

Some say they when a conterfiet gets out a company should try to stand by the product as best as they can is some cases to protect thier image. it sounds good as they might get some brand loyalty out of it, but then it might cause a bigger run on fakes and this would cost them money!!
it's a very fine line. BUT if any comany knows that fakes, factory rejects and getting out and sold to the public, the should make people aware of this.

If the product is Legit and purchased new off ebay or any other dicount house/price, it should be coverd under warranty if the claim is legit.
Also if they will not cover the item make it known on their site. 
Truvativ did this when Price Point was selling thier cranks at a discount. They claimed they were selling grey market OEM cranks and would not cover the warranty. THEY LET YOU KNOW this on thier site. I found out heard they were not Grey Market OEM but Price Point was selling them as a loss leader. So I NEVER bought or will by another Truvativ item again!

I had an issue with soem Avid brakes from JensonUSA. Avid told me these were gray market OEM brakes and that's why a parts was missing. You know what, they sent the missing part for free 2-Day Air so I could use them for a race that weekend. NOW that's customer service and now they have me loyalty.

Should Ritchey cover the OP fork? Know due to it was crashed, BUT they should fix their issue, post on thier site about possible fake forks.
Now if they are lying and deciving the public on the contruction of the fork by painting the aluminum and claiming they are carbon , I hope they go bankrupt!

BUT get the word out about possible Fake fork posted on your SITE before someone gets hurt and killed because of it!


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## SDizzle

Yes, I told Ritchey that I laid the bike down; I also told them that I did not crash the bike. In my opinion, there's a difference between casing a curb (or what have you) and touching a wheel at less than 10 mph and flopping onto a hip, and Ritchey agreed, suggesting that any fork should withstand normal lay-downs - but NOT frontal collisions, etc. You're welcome to your opinions.

Also, I said in many places that I was not trying to scam Ritchey, and that I did not think they owed me anything. I'm sorry you missed those. I DID say that they ought to protect their name, but I didn't even _imply_ that they should do this by sending me a new fork out of hand. I am not shocked in the least that regarding my fork Ritchey chose the course of action they did; but it is a little shocking that these forks are on the market, and Ritchey hasn't really pursued it. Dirt Boy offered some excellent examples of other similar instances.

I can't say that I will never buy another Ritchey product, and would guess that this is not even Ritchey's fault - it's Mizuno's!  And as for "Ritchey lying to me," they told me that the legit version of this fork has NO aluminum in it anywhere. If that's true, then Excel has also recieved pallet-loads of never-intended-for-sale forks. That seems a little wierd to me, but I'm guessing it makes perfect sense to you, and anyway, it all has its roots in my being "Ebay sucker AND a little scammer, too." Good luck with that.


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## niteflyer

*I bought the same Ritchey WCS fork*

Very interesting reading.
I bought the same fork from the same seller. 
I just inspected the fork carefully. Seems ok to me.
I think I will continue to ride it except that I will inspect it often.
The fork doesn't have much material above the drop outs so I think even a 
slow speed crash could jeopardize it's integrity.
I guess unless you want to buy from an official local dealer it's buyer beware!


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## ultimobici

DIRT BOY said:


> If the product is Legit and purchased new off ebay or any other dicount house/price, it should be coverd under warranty if the claim is legit.
> Also if they will not cover the item make it known on their site.
> Truvativ did this when Price Point was selling thier cranks at a discount. They claimed they were selling grey market OEM cranks and would not cover the warranty. THEY LET YOU KNOW this on thier site. I found out heard they were not Grey Market OEM but Price Point was selling them as a loss leader. So I NEVER bought or will by another Truvativ item again!
> 
> I had an issue with soem Avid brakes from JensonUSA. Avid told me these were gray market OEM brakes and that's why a parts was missing. You know what, they sent the missing part for free 2-Day Air so I could use them for a race that weekend. NOW that's customer service and now they have me loyalty.


Interesting that you won't deal with Truvativ but love Avid's attitude. They are one and the same - SRAM!


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## DIRT BOY

Not when I had the issues with them and neither was AVID.
Also nothing about Price Point anymore listed on the Truvativ page.

Now that they are under SRAM, I am sure things are better as SRAM CS is top notch!


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## jordan

The best explanation is that the fork in question is an actual Ritchey fork that is defective,but because it was sold through gray market channels Ritchey is denying any responsibility for it.I bought a Ritchey WCS handlebar cheap from a gray market dealer with ties to Taiwan and later received a letter from the seller asking me to return it as defective because Ritchey had threatened him with legal action for selling it.There was actually nothing wrong with the bars-it was just Ritchey playing hardball to protect their high retail price structure.It is obvious Ritchey stuff at US retail has a high markup when you see 1000$-1800$ Taiwan bikes laden with top end Ritchey parts-eg.Bikes Direct bikes, for example.Ritchey is just a design firm that does not actually make the parts-they are made in the same Taiwan factories that make parts for other designers.They do not have total control over sales of left over,overstock,or last years parts that are sold in Taiwan to EBAY or other internet sellers.If you buy the gray market parts you should not expect them to have any warranty from Ritchey so the buyer must beware.I for one am happy to buy gray market bike parts and am willing to take the risk of not having a warranty in exchange for much lower prices.


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## yamaha_mike

SDizzle said:


> ...
> 
> And as far as steel goes...it was either buy a Wound Up now, or wait for custom steel. I'm glad I didn't wait - for sure - but I'm still looking into a nice steel fork. I've only ridden this fork once, but I must say: Wound Up is the steel of carbons. This sh!t is STIFF. I haven't felt steering so precise since the Surly Instigator fork I had on my rigid SS MTB!
> 
> ...


I recently ebay'd a Lemond Zurich which came with a wound-up fork. Got zero complaints with this fork!


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## midlife_xs's

There are a lot of counterfeits, knock-offs, seconds, rejects, factory-overruns, etc. of *Branded Goods* selling in the Far East. The very best ones are identical to the real thing in looks, feel, appearance, etc. 
Unless you buy from an Authorized Dealer/Reseller, you cannot even be 100% positive that you got a genuine one. Again, unless you buy from an Authorized Dealer/Reseller, you don't have any recourse whatsover.
That is the long and the short of it.


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## mav616

cocoboots said:


> Ritchey is correct. the wcs fork has no full aluminum dropout. the excel team bikes are using the Ritchey WCS fork and they do not have full aluminum tabs. Sounds like you got a bad ebayer....


Do you think it's a copy fork?


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## jordan

I have never seen a branded bike part that was obviously a fake or knock-off.I have seen OEM parts that were a heavier or lesser version of a branded part,but I don't consider these parts fakes.Example-wire beaded versions of folding tires.Can anybody provide an example of a fake branded bike part?


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## cocoboots

jordan said:


> I have never seen a branded bike part that was obviously a fake or knock-off.I have seen OEM parts that were a heavier or lesser version of a branded part,but I don't consider these parts fakes.Example-wire beaded versions of folding tires.Can anybody provide an example of a fake branded bike part?



i think this thread has been hijacked....but to answer your question...

chris king had a huge problem with counterfit headsets a few years ago. they were being sold for about 1/3 less than the real king headset or some places were giving them free with fork purchases. the headsets said "headsets" on them....whereas a real king says "headset" with the TM logo for the trademark. Simple to overlook. They were high quality far east knock offs, probably made for dirt cheap and sold for huge margins.


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## SDizzle

cocoboots said:


> i think this thread has been hijacked....but to answer your question...
> 
> chris king had a huge problem with counterfit headsets a few years ago. they were being sold for about 1/3 less than the real king headset or some places were giving them free with fork purchases. the headsets said "headsets" on them....whereas a real king says "headset" with the TM logo for the trademark. Simple to overlook. They were high quality far east knock offs, probably made for dirt cheap and sold for huge margins.


I read an article in the NYT today about whole companies being faked! NEC was their primary example - apparently a whole operation was set up, and it not only built counterfeit electronics, but also contracted NEC's regular suppliers. I seriously doubt this is what happened in the case of this fork, however.


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## BuzzWindrip

Amazing how a thread like this lives on, providing valuable info for other Ritchey knock-off fork owners. Thanks for the photo's SDizzle; I now can junk my fork without a second thought.


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## RBanuelos10

Great reference pictures. I own a 05 Lapierre that has that Ritchey WCS Fork. I removed it to clean it and noticed what seems like a crack in the finish around the same area where you stress cracked it. 
My Fork is legit, original to the frame, I wonder if I am now victim of a dying fork. I'll take some pictures. Seems like they do put aluminum drop outs. Now I'm worried. Ride it? or not?


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