Like many cycling enthusiasts, when I got started riding, I went a little nuts with cycling jerseys and started buying all kinds of crazy ones from eBay and local shops. After bit I started to feel that I didn’t want to be a billboard for products or for teams that I had never ridden for.

I stumbled into the jerseys by Twin Six and fell in love. Twin Six was started by cyclists who happened to be graphic designers and wanted to wear something other than jerseys with beer company logos on them. They wanted interesting designs, not plain, dull jerseys.

Over the last few years, I have gathered quite a few Twin Six jerseys. Let’s be honest, I have way too many jerseys. More than anyone actually needs. But since I’m still riding my 7 year old road bike rather than succumbing to a fresh round of carbon fever, I kinda justify my spending. My wife, of course, just rolls her eyes at me when a new jersey arrives. I won’t mention her Lululemon & Athleta habits…

Yes, it’s far more than I need.

I even have a Twin Six bike frame that I bought on sale. It’s my commuter.

Gotta love Stars & Stripes

Yes, I have a weakness for the Twin Six gear.

In 2015, life was complicated. I was working far from home, and cycling was my respite from the pressures of work and helped clear my head. I saw the new 2015 jerseys released and was captivated by the Wound Up. I held off buying it when it was released. I’m lucky enough to have very little wants in life, so I tend to ‘save’ things like this so they can be gifts for my birthday or Christmas.

As the holidays approached, my wife asked what I wanted for Christmas. I told her I wanted the jersey. She told me to go ahead and buy it, then she’d give it to me. Eagerly I went to the Twin Six site, but was dismayed to find it sold out. I started googling around to find it at a bike shop somewhere, but had no luck. Finally I saw it pop up on Aliexpress. Aliexpress.com is a shopping portal to Chinese businesses. Kinda like an eBay for stuff directly from China. There it was, the Wound Up jersey, in Large, waiting for me to buy for only $22, with free shipping to the US. Normally $85 from Twin Six, I knew something was amiss, but ordered one anyways. I hoped it was a extra or something that had been made for Twin Six, but grey marketed in China.

I discussed this with my wife and other cyclist friends. People were split between it being a complete knock off and it being made for Twin Six and not shipped to the US. Weeks and weeks passed and no jersey. I began to think I had lost my $22 to a Chinese scam.

Amazingly, the Wound Up appeared at backcountry.com, a reseller that I’d bought Twin Six jerseys from when they went out of stock previously. Happily I paid for a ‘real’ Twin Six jersey and awaited delivery. Amazingly, I received a note that my Aliexpress Wound Up jersey was on it’s way as well.

They both arrived in the same week.

Real jersey on the left, counterfeit on the right.

As soon as the Aliexpress version arrived, I knew it was a knock-off. Even before comparing to other Twin Six jerseys. Elastic on the sleeves, a rubberized line at the waist, labeling, zipper pulls, and the overall fabric feel was off.

Which is the fake?

Looking at a close up, you can see a lot of differences. The label, the tag itself, the type of zipper, even the size of the collar itself. It became pretty clear that the jersey itself was a fairly generic jersey, used as the base of cycling kits for printing as needed.

Real jersey on the left, counterfeit on the right.

The strange thing is that the design itself is not an exact copy of the original. If you look closely at the first jersey picture, you’ll see that the lines are similar, but not the same. Look at the side panel and notice that the ‘6’ is slightly too small and the words ‘Twin Six’ are too big and too white.

A designer had to spend time to make a design that attempted to match the original version. Far more than a copy & paste, the designer must have spent a while on this to get it acceptable to the casual buyer.

Subtle things make it special.

Obviously missing is the attention to detail that Twin Six puts in with a message written inside the center rear pocket. What goes in the center pocket varies from jersey to jersey, but is a mark of the focus Twin Six puts into their work.

It all brings me to the question of “why?”. Twin Six is a boutique brand for cyclists. Not the mass market brands that you typically see on the road. Yet for $22, I was able to buy a reasonable jersey that must have had a designer put in work to create and then feed into a printer. How many customers could they have for this single Wound Up jersey? Are they making any money? If $22 buys me a printed jersey and free shipping across the Pacific, what does it actually cost to make a jersey?

So many questions about the world of counterfeit jerseys, but no real answers.

I should have known.

Notice that the label says “Designed & Made in U.S.A.”. Going forward, I’ll simply be more patient and wait till real Twin Six jerseys become available. As I write, the Wound Up is now available again. I do really like the way that The Navigator looks, and my birthday is in July…

Probably more questions than answers here, but I think it’s safe to say, if you think you are getting a deal by buying a cycling jersey direct from China, you are probably getting a knock off. The jersey is probably fine, but it’s not a real jersey and it doesn’t support the people that designed it in the first place.