Been doing some bike and equipment shopping recently and have found the following that potential buyers should be aware of,
- Hidden cheap components: Often companies would install a RD from a good groupset and then mix and match the rest of the components from cheaper or unknown brand groupsets. On the hybrid I got, everything was Campy Veloce, but after a recent clean, I found out the rear cassette was made by Miche and the chain was some unknown brand. And it's no wonder there's been so much metal fragments on the chain. When I swapped it out, I found the chrome plating chipped on many teeths. And that's just under 400km. Swapping a genuine cassette from Campy fixed the problem.
- Older group set: Sometimes certain components from a groupset installed are from an earlier generation. Although the groupset name remain unchanged, the technology may be 2-3 years old.
These are just two I noticed and I am sure there are other tricks that would give newbie a false sense of quality. Check them out very very carefully!