Can't be arsed to engage with the general idiocy of the topic though.
F**k it, I've got time to kill at work before I can sod off home.
So I came across this piece of :emoji_poop: knock off Vekoma boosterbike, and there is so much wrong with this coaster. Bad profiling, misaligned brakes, slow moving drive tyres, the fact you have to wear helmets on the ride, the use of Velocity's colour scheme, I could keep going.
See, you kind of started off ok with this. This petty much IS a knockoff since it has copied most of the Vekoma original, down to the layout. However, they've developed their own launch system. Essentially, they've seen pictures and videos and copied it using their own tech/manufacturing. This is unlike what Golden Horse have done with their mine trains and SLCs, which seem to have been completely reverse engineered from the original models. Not sure where the helmet thing is coming from. If that's true, it's a recent thing. Colour scheme? Really? Would you ever comment on similar colour schemes elsewhere?
There are lots of badly built Chinese coasters (most of them are),
This is where you've gone full muppet because you're wrong and you're coming from a place of absolutely zero personal experience. The whole "Chinese knockoffs!!!! LOL!!!!" thing is lazy, tired, misinformed, largely inaccurate, and comes from a place of misinformation and a total lack of experience. It's the new "Togo is so rough!!!!" line of enthusiast bulls**t which 99% of the time came from people who'd never ridden one.
So, the whole "knockoff" thing. I realise you've made a distinction in the topic title, so this isn't aimed squarely here, but more in general. Not everything from a Chinese coaster company is a knockoff. In fact, most aren't at all. The Golden Horse spinners, mine trains, motocoasters and SLCs? Absolutely. They've copied everything about the original models, from track and train design to layout.
Beijing Jiuhua's motorbike coasters (the one in the video) and spinning coasters? Fair enough to call them knockoffs since they've copied the layouts and looks of the rides, but their ride systems are their own. The rest of their coaster models are their own.
Beijing Shiboalai's shuttle loops, boomerangs and magic coasters? Same thing. Copied layouts but with their own ride systems. Again, they have plenty of their own models on top of those.
Most Chinese SLCs (the ones that aren't the Golden Horse "Kumali" copies) are not knockoffs at all. They've completely designed their own layouts, with varying degrees of success. The Beijing Shiboalai models are pretty bad, but personally I find them slightly better than Golden Horse's direct Vekoma copies, but Beijing Jiuhua's are actually decent. They're less common at the moment, but the two I've done have been
better than most Vekoma SLCs.
Knockoff Vekoma loopscrews? How about we acknowledge the fact that Vekoma is the knockoff company here? They didn't just see and copy Arrow's track design; they 100% stole it! They were Arrow's manufacturer in Europe and just decided to cut Arrow out completely and go it alone using Arrow's track design. That's way shadier than anything any of the Chinese companies have done.
Disclaimer here because I've obviously used the term in the past (I don't now since I've realised the double standards), and again this is more general than aimed at this thread specifically since the title actually does make a distinction, but why is it that we only use the term "knockoff" when it comes to Chinese-made rides, even when the designs are significantly different?
Why don't we call Huss Giant Frisbees and Zamperla Giant Discoveries "Intamin Gyro Swing Knockoffs" when that's what they pretty much are? Why are the only "knockoff" shot/drop towers the ones in China when there are countless European manufacturers building their own versions who don't get that label? They've all essentially seen S&S's towers and built their own. How many western companies are building small spinning coasters while Golden Horse's are the only ones labelled as "knockoff"? Boosters anyone? Swinging ships? Ferris wheels?
I'll answer the question for you. The "knockoff" label for Chinese rides and not for Western companies doing
exactly the same thing comes from a place of cultural superiority, and it's f**king gross.
