Last week, the news spread quickly: Ikea will sell an own bicycle from August on.
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The question arising immediately with regard to the bike of the furniture company: How good or bad is Sladda? Ikea is not especially known for furniture lasting a lifetime. And bicycles from discount, DIY, department stores and supermarket chains do not have a particularly good reputation. Only recently, the German television channel NDR tested four cheap bicycles. The results: broken handlebars, displaced rim tapes, imbalances of the tyres and slipping handlebar grips. According to the experts, the bicycles should not have been sold at all. Hagebau and Lidl withdrew their models even from the product range.
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If I decide to buy nevertheless: what should I keed in mind?
According to Dirk Zedler of the German institute for bicycle technology, the most sensitive areas are the brakes and the gear systems. "These are the first components to fail," he explains towards the German TV channel WDR. These components should therefore be checked for functioning. The other shortcomings can hardly be identified. Nico Langenbeck of the German foundation for comparative product testing (Stiftung Warentest) states "as a non-professional it is hard. In these cases I am simply not familiar with the components and add-on parts. I must be able to rely upon the seller." You should best take an expert with you, just like you do when buying a used vehicle.
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Read the entire article here.
Author: Felix Reek
Photo: Ikea
