Top Chinese brands you should know

Traditionally, defining a bike or certain components with the qualifier "Chinese" was synonymous with products that were often mere copies of poor quality of more well-known items or generic bikes with questionable quality and performance. However, in recent years, brands with their own identity have emerged from the Asian country, landing in Europe with all the guarantees of quality, customer service, and products that are not going unnoticed.

From generic bikes to quality proprietary products, Chinese brands to watch

It has been more than a year since the Chinese carbon fiber manufacturer, XDS, landed as the main sponsor of an Astana team that seemed destined for relegation to the second category of cycling. With their bikes X-Lab, the XDS-Astana has not only managed to stay comfortably in the World Tour but has also completed a truly remarkable season on the bicycles of the Chinese manufacturer.

Undoubtedly, a paradigm shift in a path that brands from this country have been taking to achieve their own identity and go beyond manufacturing generic bikes, known as open mold, for European brands that limited themselves to placing their logos on the chosen model.

RECOMENDADO

How to choose the right crankset and cassette: a guide to find the right ratio and extend the life of your bike

Restrap launches the Switch Rack, an ultralight bikepacking rack that has already won awards

UNNO confirms its leap into competitive XCO with an ambitious UNNO Factory Racing

SRAM heats up the launch of a new product

"A particularly painful decision": Why has Canyon entered a delicate phase?

Manufacturers of caravans, supermarkets, or electric charging stations: what do the sponsors of the World Tour 2026 do?

The case of the XDS-Astana is not the only one. In the last World Championship held in Rwanda, British cyclist Harry Hudson surprised everyone in the junior category by winning with a solo exhibition of 35 kilometers on a bike from the Quick Pro brand, specifically the aerolight model ER:One, which was able to leave the scale just above the 6.8 kg limit set by the UCI.

In light of the results that Chinese bikes seem to be delivering to teams, the latest to join this bet has been Euskaltel-Euskadi. In turbulent times for the Basque team, which has not even managed to enter the ranking positions that offer the option to be invited to one of the grand tours, they will also use Quick Pro bicycles throughout 2026.

Beyond bikes, brands that offer top-level products at prices that are still very interesting are also starting to be taken into account in the components market. The most striking are the wheels, with brands like Elitewheels that have versatile models in their catalog such as their Drive II, where excellent aerodynamic performance combines with a weight of just 1.2 kg in their lower profile model, which uses carbon spokes and proprietary hubs with a ratchet-type core and ceramic bearings. Wheels that are used in Europe by the Vini-Fantini team.

Within the components, brands like L-Twoo do not go unnoticed, offering electronic and mechanical groups of up to 13 gears with a manufacturing quality that has little to envy to the big brands; in fact, the founder of the company worked for SRAM, or Wheeltop, which also has a wireless electronic group that the Madrid-based company Rotor markets under the name UNO.

The arrival of Chinese brands in Europe concludes with the arrival of electronics. IGPSport and Magene have landed strongly, respectively sponsoring the teams Groupama-FDJ United and XDS-Astana, providing them with their GPS cycle computers and, in the case of Magene, also their power meters and interactive rollers.