This derailleur is a Chinese copy of an Ingrid RD1. Some of its features are:

• It's a copy of a recent model (2023?) - with the groovy hollow tension pulley.
• The colours look just slightly wrong - the green particularly disturbs me.
• The CNC metal parts are quite nicely finished and look kind-of correct. You have to look in the less obvious corners to see a difference.
• The small bolts etc. are decent quality and look correct-ish.
• The plastic parts are noticeably poorly finished compared to the real thing. They look cheap and nasty. It's interesting that 3D printed plastic is harder to fake than CNCd metal.
• There is a strange clear plastic 'bubble' over the logo on the outer parallelogram plate. I have not seen this on an original version.
• At 286g it seems about 10g heavier than the real thing
• It feels like it would work OK, the pulleys turn reasonably smoothly and the parallelogram feels tight.
• It comes in a box that is nearly convincing and is clearly, but erroneously, labelled 'Made in Italy'.
• It costs somewhere between one fifth and one tenth of the price of the original.

But it sends a whole herd of questions stampeding through my mind:

• In an age of affordable laser scanners, inexpensive CNC machines and cheap 3D printers, a design is such a fragile thing - mere data that is minutes away from capture. How will small manufacturers survive in this world without meaningful barriers to entry?
• What is the point of a copy of a luxury product? Surely you buy an Ingrid derailleur precisely in order to enjoy an exclusive, artisanal product of exquisite quality. How does owning a fake version deliver any of that?
• Is there really much virtue in trying to con your friends into thinking that you're an afficionado by parading around with a bike fitted with a fake derailleur?

Also perhaps:

• Is a cheap copy of an Ingrid RD1 a viable competitor to comparably priced Shimano and SRAM models? Is the fake RD1 better or worse than a Shimano SLX?

And finally...

• Should a site like this be showing this derailleur at all or should fakes be denied all and any oxygen? I should note that I only originally became aware of this derailleur when Ingrid themselves posted a warning about fakes on their web site.

At first I was fascinated to see this derailleur, but I soon tired of it. If I was an oligarch I would want the real thing. If I wanted to fool my friends I would need help with my mental health. And if I wanted the best derailleur for the price I would probably go for that Shimano SLX. A faked derailleur can only be a passing fad - an irrelevant gimmick.

An acquaintance suggested that it might be interesting to try to build up a bike entirely using counterfeit parts. And this might be the one situation in which this fake Ingrid derailleur had found its rightful place - as a lurid, gaudy, bauble hung on a Christmas tree of madness.

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• Derailleur brands: Someone in China imitating Ingrid
• Themes: A riot of colour
• Country: China pretending to be Italy
• Date of introduction: 2023?
• Date of this example: unknown
• Model no.: R11SH S
• Weight: 286g
• Maximum cog: 52 teeth
• Total capacity: 42 teeth
• Pulley centre to centre: 88mm
• Index compatibility: 11-speed Shimano
• Chain width: 3/32”
• Logic: top normal
• B pivot: unsprung
• P pivot: sprung
• Materials: CNC machined 7075 aluminium parallelogram, 3D printed PA12 composite pulley cage and cable guide fin