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.

ZEIT ONLINE 2014/07/08
Reading time 1:20 minutes

Look into state-of-the-art bicycle production

Yesterday, the science show Galileo on German TV showed an interesting film on bicycle production in Germany and China.

During the film it becomes clear: Even bicycles with a German name are made from components coming mainly from the Far East. In Germany, they are painted, assembled and receive their final equipment.

The Chinese production plants build completely assembled bicycles mainly for the Japanese and American markets. Since the introduction of the European anti-dumping duty the import of completely assembled bicycles is no longer profitable according to Galileo. As the EU imposes a 48.5 percent duty on each bicycle.

Rather impressive is the test in the test laboratory of bicycle expert Dirk Zedler at the end of the film. The expert tests two bicycles which were brought along by the journalists: The one had been purchased in a specialist shop at almost 600 Euro, the other one had been ordered on the internet for self-assembly at nearly 200 Euro. The test results of the bicycle from the internet are disillusioning: Even the expert has problems during the assembly. The gear system is wrongly adjusted and the assembly instructions are illustrated with partly wrong pictures. In contrast, the bicycle from the specialist shop does not show any defects.

(...)

Author: Andrea Reidl

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