The knife was sold on the Chinese platforms (bought mine from AliExpress) for ~$135.
The shipping was pretty quick, received it in about 3 weeks since the order.
This model is a budget version of Rike's 1508s integral model (which is much more expensive) and was produced to celebrate 2 years since the original model was out on the market.
First impressions:
The knife arrived in a great quality black knife pouch, with a branded microfiber cloth.
No quality issues out of the box - the blade is sharp and centered, no blade play whatsoever (feels like a fixed blade), fit and finish are close to perfect.
I was generally very impressed with the quality and the looks of the knife.
One thing I could mention as a negative - the knife had very hard detent (it was really difficult to get it to flip) and it wasn't very smooth - I will elaborate on that later.
Good:
The knife is really well made, I could say that the quality level is higher than any other knife I ever had in the collection. The milling and all the lines are close to perfection, the coating on the blade and handle is even, I mean I don't have a single thing to mention as a bad thing about the fit and the finish (which doesn't happen often).
Usually the first thing I do when I get a knife from China is to disassemble it to clean on the inside (or at least adjust the pivot to tweak the action). With this one - it isn't needed, as the pivot was adjusted perfectly from the factory and didn't come loose a bit since then (even after lots of flipping).
Great:
The design. The knife has a unique, futuristic look to it and all of the detail work (the milling, exposure of lines through the coating and the grinds) make it look even better.
Even though the blade has a length of 3.75", the knife feels more compact in the pocket due to the overall slim profile.
The pocket clip is also designed and made very well, not a deep carry one, but is deep enough to show only the tip of the knife and made to look as a black pen clip. It also has just the right amount of flexibility.
Ergos are also great for my middle sized hand in all kinds of grips and the balance is right in the middle, which makes the knife to feel lighter than it is in the hand.
It is really noticeable, that it took quite a bit of time to design the different aspects of the knife and that it wasn't made on a whim.
Bad:
There are only two things I felt negative about in this knife:
1. As I've mentioned before - the action out of the box wasn't great and the detent was too hard.
There were few reasons for that - the lockbar pushed too hard, the coating on the blade and the fact that the knife came dry (especially in the detent ball area).
After detecting those problems, I lubed the detent ball and started to break the knife in and it worked great. The knife became smoother with every flip and I can say by now (after about a week of flipping) it became very smooth, to the point of almost free-dropping.
So that turned out to be OK, but keep that in mind when you receive this one.
2. The weight. I mean it isn't heavy, but the handles aren't milled on the inside and if they were - it could be really cool. So not necessarily a bad thing, but a suggestion for improvement.
Ugly:
The guys who still say all knives made in China are crap and not worth it.
This model isn't sold on AliExpress anymore, but there is a new one with CF inlays, which make the knife less heavy.
Check it out here (a trusted seller, I bought this knife from): Rike 1701CF
More Rike Knives are sold here: Rike Knives
