All about bicycles, electric-assisted bikes, technology and safety in the press

The most common safety risks that we come across in our daily work around bicycle safety, technology and operating instructions are also published by us in articles in the leading German special-interest magazines TOUR (Europe's road bike magazine no. 1), BIKE (Europe's mountain bike magazine no. 1), MYBIKE and EMTB in order to make this information, which is important for the industry, available to a wider public.

For many years now, the Eurobike Show Daily, trade fair magazine of the annual Eurobike Show, has also given us the opportunity to publish our view of major developments in the cycle industry in full-page articles.

We also speak regularly in independent expert presentations about all areas of bicycle technology and the bicycle market. In addition, we are quoted by further special-interest magazines of the industry and the trade as well as increasingly by radio and television in their media reports, which shows us that we are spot on with our advice. The section "News" informs you about the latest news from our specialist areas. The reports and publications of this section are listed chronologically or according to areas of interest.

BIKE 06/2002
Reading time 1:10 minutes

Dangerous forks

Faulty design with Votec and Acros double-bridged forks.

That double-bridged forks do not necessarily mean more safety shows frame- and fork-manufacturer Votec.

(...)

The clamping bolts on the lower bridge loosen gradually (ie they may loosen when not correctly tightened – annotation Dirk Zedler) causing the bridge slowly but surely to detach from the head tube. This leads to the fork’s folding and to an unavoidable fall.

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Votec already detected this problem in July 2001 and has since been integrating a new, double clamping mechanism into all forks. (...) All Votec-pilots worrying about their safety, can upgrade their forks with the new clamping bolt. Costs: 30 Euros (without assembly) – not very customer-friendly.

Faulty just as well are all double-bridged forks of the Acros company, which had been almost identical in construction to the Votec-forks till January, 1, 2002. Also Acros detected the problem and has been upgrading all new forks with a continuous clamping bolt. Also here, no recall has been launched, but at least free amendment is offered. Acros-head Frank Weidner: "On specification of serial number, the bike dealer will retrofit the part free of charge."

Dirk Zedler confirms: "The construction of the Votec-forks is not redundant (double-backed) at this place." That’s why Zedler recommends the following for Votec-forks:

Advice for Votec-forks
Make sure fork clampings are assembled grease-free
Prevent all fork bolts from loosening by using bolt backups
Tighten the bolts with the torque stipulated
Check the bolted connections regularly with a torque wrench