Carbon Titanium AliExpress Crank, For $35 what do you expect?

A subscriber sent in this AliExpress crankset after discovering it simply would not fit through his bike frame. On the surface it looks fine. Decent packaging, carbon arms, Titanium axle, Shimano compatible on paper. In reality it is a perfect example of why aliexpress is a minefield

In this video I strip it down, weigh it, inspect the machining, and then measure what actually matters. The axle is oversize, inconsistent end to end, and not concentric. That might sound trivial if you have never dealt with bearings, but in engineering terms it is catastrophic. In this case it would not fit a multitude of bottom brackets

I explain why long slender shafts are difficult to machine properly, why quality control matters more than shiny carbon, and why saving money on parts you cannot see usually comes back to bite you. We also go through the realistic options for fixing this mess, including why grinding bearings is a terrible idea and how custom top hats can sometimes rescue an otherwise unusable crankset.

As always, I keep these videos raw. If you don't like "firm" engineering language then click on the next GCN video.

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