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.

SAZbike 10/2014
Reading time 1:40 minutes

Expert claims: Stop the annual change of models!

Besides political and economic future issues the third bicycle conference vivavelo in Berlin also dealt with the issue product safety. Especially the e-bike confronts the sector with major problems. It’s not only the bicycle safety, but also the rider’s safety which has to be improved. A panel discussion reflected the different opinions of the industry, the trade and the end consumers.

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Does the annual cycle of models compromise safety?

For the expert Dirk Zedler (Zedler – Institut für Fahrradtechnik und -Sicherheit) especially the annual model change and the wide model range is a problem which affects product safety. He therefore requests "Stop the annual change of models" to ensure thorough safety tests of the models. Moreover, he suggests creating solutions for the components suitable to be mounted to a wide range of bicycles. This would increase the piece numbers of the parts, reduce the price of the components as a result of an increased demand, allow a less expensive production of the complete bicycle and make product tests safer, as they could be conducted more thoroughly.

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Cycle training for new customers

This information is of major importance in particular for e-bike purchases and new purchases. These customers are strongly focussed on their new bicycle and not so much on road traffic. The consequence: an increased risk of accident. This fact is proved by Dirk Zedler who surveys lots of new bicycles damaged in accidents in his institute. "The users need to learn from the beginning how to handle the products", says the expert. An interesting possibility to improve the situation suggested from many sides was a cycle training for pedelec cyclists.

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All in all the discussion proved that there were different approaches to improve the safety especially of e-bikes. All interested parties, from the bicycle manufacturer via the specialist dealer and the test institutes to the end consumers, could however contribute to an improvement of the situation. Although Dirk Zedler concluded that no one was able to design and test the "all-in-one device suitable for every purpose", he stated that the entire sector could make a contribution to improve the safety by cooperation to ensure that the dealers will not feel left alone.

Author: Thomas Geisler

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