RODEZ, France — When Alberto Contador won the Tour de France in 2010 while riding a bicycle made by Specialized for the first time, Andrew Love was both elated and apprehensive.
“I knew they would be coming,” Love, the company’s head of brand protection, investigation and legal enforcement, recalled.
Contador’s success was ultimately short-lived — the title was revoked two years later because of doping — but that had nothing to do with Love’s fear: that Contador’s victory aboard the Specialized carbon fiber bicycle frame would hasten the arrival of copies from China, where there has been a surge in counterfeit high-end bikes, wheels and even helmets.
Unlike, for example, a fake Rolex watch that stops ticking, fake cycling products can have dangerous consequences, several manufacturers said.
