 Today we're at Carbon Steed, a bike painting and carbon fiber repair business where owner Gary McDonald is gonna tell us what he thinks of the elves and the tri-fox frame and ultimately which is the best build quality. I've also come to Taylor Cycles where expert mechanic Jay Taylor is gonna give us his thoughts on both frames and the Sensor Empire group set. So let's get into it. Everything looks nice. It looks like somebody's sized all this stuff. It's very consistent. Before Gary continues, you might be wondering, I don't know, buddy, Chinese bike, which I'll explain towards the end of this video and you also might be wondering why I have two frames when this project, which I explained in detail up there was really a vote from you, the audience on what frame we should select for this cheapest race bike build project. But we have two. Here's the thing. When I put these two bikes to vote, it was a very close call on two bikes, the elves, Falloth and the tri-fox X10 or X10 on both voting platforms. So I thought, why not buy both and let Gary and Jay decide, note that the elves frame with their integrated bars comes in at a touch over 2000 AUD. And as an Aussie, I really liked how the elves offered a Australian website with Australian support and the tri-fox came in at a touch under $1400 AUD. So yes, there is roughly a 600 AUD or $400 USD price difference between these two frames. But I feel like we're playing in the same ballpark and for reference, the windspace T1500, which we also built up on this channel, which is actually a true race bike being UCI approved, these two frames aren't, comes in at $2,500 AUD delivered, now offering the bars included in the frame package. Yeah, that internal routing cable is a little bit ugly there, but by and large, it's pretty. That paint job inside that is so nice. Is that right, Gary? I wouldn't mind betting this especially. Yeah, it's not terrible. Yeah, it's got, you know, the, yeah, yeah, I'll have a look under a magnifying glass, just that. Like, I think it's just, you know, one of the big names would have, it's shaded over there, you know, so you just couldn't see it, so I wouldn't crucify them on there. Threaded bottom bracket. Yes. Threaded just is absolute, isn't it? You know, I see it's specializing going back to threaded bottom brackets. Nice, Gary. Me? Yeah, what do you got on? Nothing, mate. Okay. It's quite thick in the middle of the tube compared to virtually most bikes, you know. I will talk about upstairs. Have you ever heard of these two frames before? Never. Okay. And I don't follow Chinese bill frames, you know, it's not, it's not our core business and we don't. I don't feel bad about it. I'm here hearing about it. I watched my videos, you know. That's what I'm saying to you, it says, it's almost too nice, you know, for a mass produced type thing. The gloss area is very nice paint job and then it's got the nice little fade from gloss to matte, which, well, yeah, it takes a little bit of thinking about and all that, but that's why I said, did they know this was for you because it looks good. So here's the thing. I ordered all these parts under my wife's name to mitigate this from happening. Can you confirm that all bike parts were purchased in your name? They definitely were. Okay, and what name did we use? My maiden name. Thanks for supporting us with this project. Thanks for supporting us with this project. Got a big bit of spinach between the teeth. Whether these businesses or brands could still figure this out. I don't know, but I tried my very best. It's of a lower quality, you know. That's probably what you'd expect to see in a Chinese frame, you know. There's divots in the top tube, you know. Dirt inclusions in the paint, a few blisters and things like that. Nothing for you to say, oh my God, that's, you know, throw it away, send it back, sort of thing. Yeah, it's of the quality I would expect. Whereas this one is not of the quality I would expect, and even when I look inside the tubes, everything's finished off nicely. You know, I was saying before, you know, they've nicely, you know, finished off the edges of the bottom bracket and in, well, everywhere really. Whereas this one, they haven't. As I would expect to see a Chinese frame, everything about it is, yeah, like I'm not saying it's bad quality, but I'm saying it's of a lesser quality to this. Yeah, none of them, you know. This one looked like it had a thicker top tube than this one, but I didn't find anything, you know, I didn't go over every inch of it like, you know, to say, was there a void around here or anything like that, thinner in the middle of the top. This one was quite thick in the top tube. So all of the top tube really does is stop these bits coming together. So wherever they can save weight, they save weight. The top tube doesn't need to be strong, so it's thick here and then thin, thin, thin, and then just like the old double-butted steel tube, you know, like thicker at the ends, thinner in the middle. So if you were going to rely on which one would you choose? This one. Okay. Yeah, without a doubt, no question, yeah. There he is. Ready for an unboxing. Good afternoon. Here we are. And who do we have here? Paul. Paul? Patrick. Patrick. We are ready. Yeah. This bad boy. Before we get back to jail, let's quickly weigh these frames. I'm a 179 centimetres, so I normally go like a 54 or medium. In the elves, I'm an extra large, which is a 54, little bit strange, but let's weigh this thing. 1280 grams for the elves. Uncut fork, 385 grams. And in the trifox, I am actually a medium trifox, 1245 grams, 410 grams. Did you enjoy that weigh in, mate? It's a good boy, isn't he? Rough as guts. Yeah? Yeah. Why do you say that? The first thing I looked at was the head tube, where the bearings are meant to sit in and it's actually rough and sharp. No, it should be smooth. Why is that? That's the baby's bottom, because that is where the bearing is meant to sit in there. Okay. And yeah, it's just chunky, sharp sheets of carbon. You look down through here, it's the same thing. Very stiff, but it's extremely rattly. A little bit flexy for how thick it is. So, and then you look at this one. Yeah, very, very clean in here. A beautiful surface there for the bearings to sit in, top and bottom. It's nice and clean in the frame. Very clean bottom bracket area. Oh, look at that. Way stiffer. And a nice little page up there. It's got a chameleon. Yes. Gold, green, gold, green, gold, green. Gary, you definitely picked this one. Yeah, 100%. What are we sticking? What are we sticking on there, Joe? The sense side empire. This stuff over here. So clearly after watching that, you should know we're going to be building up the Elves, fellas. I think that's how you say it, frame. If you want to see this thing, get built up and turn into a first impressions and long-term review. Don't forget to support the channel by hitting that subscribe button below. And to be honest, I'm kind of glad we did end up here because just pulling these frames out of the box instantaneously, I thought this was the better looking frame, much cooler, and it just felt like better quality as well. So I wanted to wrap up this piece, despite the fact this will be my last Chinese bike project for some time. I feel like I'm kind of at the end of the road with this rabbit hole now, because I've received quite a lot of criticism, enough criticism to warrant a little one minute segment here on why I keep doing these Chinese bike build projects, reviews, et cetera. And there are three compelling reasons in my little world, which I wanted to share with you. Number one, you will know if you've followed this channel for some time, I've always incorporated bikes into my content, because it's a way to keep content fresh. People are interested in bikes. I like bikes too. And I remember back in the day, I used to call Specialized or Advanced Traders, can I get my hands on this bike for three weeks, this bike for four weeks? And they'd say, sure, no worries. Take it and I'd make some content. And then a month later, I'd get another bike and do the same process all over again. Now, because of what's happening around the world, if I call these brands and ask for a bike, I basically get laughed. Ha ha, what a dickhead! Off the phone. So these bikes are a lot more accessible. Number two, bikes have gotten ridiculously expensive and I feel like the pool of people that don't have 10 grand or don't wanna spend 10 grand on a bike is growing. And I feel like I can help those people through my network, such as Gary from Carbon Steed, Jay from Taylor Cycles and Aaron from Trilogy Cycles to uncover what cheaper alternatives are actually of good quality and engineering standards. Because personally from my work in this space, I believe these Chinese based products are still quite hit and miss. So helping people uncover what is actually worth while investigating gives me purpose in what I do as a YouTuber. And number three, and perhaps most importantly, I am genuinely curious about this space. I want to do these projects. And if somebody's gonna send me some aggressive communications about what they think, I don't really care because this is what I want to do. But the fact is, I have had a number of communications and that means I can probably times out by a thousand in terms of people thinking this way. So for those that wanted to lean in and understand my world for a short minute, that's the reasons why. If you've got value out of this video today, please don't forget to give it a like. It really helps the channel out. And if you want to see the guys at Carbon's Steed, painter bike, which is their specialty, I'll put a video either here or here somewhere that you can check out now.