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.

SWR - Marktcheck, May 22, 2018

Low-priced bicycles at the test

Safety risks due to assembly and quality deficiencies

Dirk Zedler, expert for bicycle technology

Are cheap bicycles a safety risk? That’s what we want to verify by a sample. We examine four models carefully:

one bicycle, brand Talson, bought at the European hypermarket Real at 165 Euro
one city bike from Decathlon for almost 200 Euro
one bicycle of manufacturer KS-Cycling, bought at Lidl at 239 Euro
one bicycle from Otto-Versand reduced from 349 to about 260 Euro.

Field test assembly

Valerie and Lea test the bicycles for us. But first of all they have to be assembled, which is easier said than done.

The Lidl bicycle: Assembly instructions are supplied, but the necessary tools are missing.
The Decathlon bicycle: The assembly instructions are missing and the tools supplied are good for hardly anything. It is only with a quality tool that the screw for adjusting the handlebar can be released.
The Real bicycle: There are comparatively a lot of parts to be assembled, but assembly instructions are also supplied. In spite of that our tester does not succeed in adjusting the handlebar – the screw cannot be tightened appropriately.
The Otto bicycle: The bicycle assembly is not a problem. Unfortunately, our tester finds a defective part: The front lamp is broken off at its mount – presumably during transport.

Road safety test in the laboratory

The expert for bicycle technology Dirk Zedler examines our bicycles carefully.

(...)

Read the entire article here.

Author: SWR
Photo: SWR

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