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

In our daily work as we deal with bicycle safety, technology and user manuals we come across lots of safety risks. The most frequent ones are published in articles of the leading German special-interest magazines TOUR – Europas Rennrad-Magazin Nr. 1, BIKE – Das Mountainbike Magazin Europas Nr. 1 and E-Bike – Das Pedelec-Magazin to make this information important for the sector accessible to a wider public.

For many years now the Eurobike Show Daily accompanying the annual international Eurobike Show has given us the opportunity to publish our perspective on major developments in the cycle industry in full-page articles.

We also speak regularly in independent lectures about all topics relating to bicycle technology and bicycle market. In addition, we are regularly cited by further special-interest magazines or trade journals as well as more and more by radio and television and in their media reports, which shows us that we are completely right with our information. The section NEWS informs you about the latest news from our specialist fields. The reports and publications of this section are listed chronologically or according to topics of interest.

EMTB 01/2016
Reading time 1:40 minutes

Creating facts

Trust is good, control is better. All electric mountain bikes undergo extensive testings in the laboratory. There is no final picture available until the laboratory results have been compared with the findings of the practical tests.

At our editorial office in Munich we make the most successful bicycle magazines in Europe: BIKE, TOUR, FREERIDE, TREKKINGBIKE and E-BIKE set the standards in their specific category. Engineers and bicycle mechanics work in our test lab to generate all relevant measurement data from a phalanx of hightech test stands. With this know-how as basis we could make EMTB. First, however, we had to redefine some points:

The average weight of a regular mountain bike is no more than about 12 kilos. In the case of e-mountain bikes it’s 20. All of a sudden the centre of gravity of a bike becomes relevant. A heavy front means a lot a steering work. A heavy tail makes the bike sluggish. In the case of e-mountain bikes we therefore measure the wheel load distribution for all bikes. It determines the percentage of weight weighing on the front and on the rear wheel.

The height of the centre of gravity is all of a sudden also decisive. Which means in short, the lower the centre of gravity, the more responsive the bike. The worst possible case would be a centre of gravity positioned far in the front and very high. The height of the centre of gravity is determined by us by a new test procedure.

We measure the overall stiffness of the frame on a complex test stand and compare it to our results from the field test. In addition, the geometry of each bicycle is determined by a laser measuring system.

Each of these individual results of our lab tests is provided with a high or low evaluation factor (weighting factor) according to its importance. Step-by-step this makes the point scoring that you find in each of our comparative tests. You can then have a closer look on the overall rating of the bike or on the individual evaluations which are of particular interest to your field of use.

Author: Stephan Ottmar
Photos: Markus Greber, Daniel Simon

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