All about bicycles, pedelecs, 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.

Nuernberger Zeitung, 2020/06/03

Faster than the police allow

Hobby mechanics and tuning fans eliminate limited speeds with tuned pedelecs. This is not only illegal, but also dangerous.

BERLIN. They are as big as matchboxes and make e-bikes twice as fast with a few simple operations: clip-on tuning kits, i.e. components designed to manipulate the limited speed. Although e-bike tuning for road traffic is illegal and dangerous, the demand for auxiliary devices pushing the speed is obviously high.

(...)

The dangerous thing about tuning is above all the fact that components, such as handlebars, frames or seat posts suffer from “fatigue” and are therefore liable to break eventually, says Dirk Zedler, Managing Director of Zedler-Institut für Fahrradtechnik und -Sicherheit. “This can happen on a normal trip, with no special reason and without notice.” Serious accidents may be the consequence.

However, manufacturers of e-bike drives have found a way to put a technical stop to the dangerous business with the manipulated boneshaker bikes: Drive manufacturer Brose offers the possibility of detecting excessive speeds by means of a sensor. Competitor Haibike also uses a sensor which reportedly makes manipulations impossible by plug-on dongles. Bosch has integrated a recognition software in recent models. However, dealers are already offering a new tuning kit that could at least bypass the protective mechanism of Bosch.

Author: Taylan Gökalp (dpa)