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.

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velobiz.de, 2014/07/28
Reading time 1:40 minutes

Bicycle tester Zedler criticizes harshly the German foundation for comparative product testing (Stiftung Warentest)

Not only manufacturers question the test results of the German product testers of the latest e-bike test. Independent experts look harshly upon the product testers, as well. "Fatal inconsistencies", is the description of bicycle tester Dirk Zedler in a statement. "In-house mistakes" were deliberately nebulized by the German foundation for comparative product testing. Some points were "described simply wrong", as for ex. the allegation of the German product testers that the e-bike industry as member of the advisory committee had advised the product testers to let the test methods of the previous year nearly unchanged.

Read hereafter the analysis of the test results by Dirk Zedler in full:

"In general: It is not correct that e-bike manufacturers and the German Bicycle Association (ZIV) had recommended in their function as participants of the board of the advisory committee of the German product testers not to continue testing as in the previous year. This is simply a wrong statement. Not a single word about the fact that the test results 2014 could be due to test setups which had been changed considerably in terms of mechanics. Instead, it’s the according to the German product testers realistic test forces which are praised mantra-like, whereas the second base of a serious test which is not less important is kept completely dead. The test in 2013 had shown an outrageous setup of the test stand.

This putting the boot in is an act on too thin ice and all the more it’s very unfair. (…)

The test field:

In general, nothing speaks again testing low step through pedelecs. As this type of bicycle addresses a very big target group and is therefore seen very often on public roads.

However, it can in our opinion not be the job of the German product testers to choose a small (price) segment. This makes sense in special interest magazines which conduct continuous tests during the season and in doing so depict all market-relevant groups.

The test conducted by Stiftung Warentest once a year must in our opinion reflect the market. This includes pedelecs at 699 Euro. This is how Stiftung Warentest produces in our opinion "losers" which are verifiably held in high esteem by the absolutely critical users and dealers by giving them poor marks which should actually and in fairness be reserved to really poor cheap products on the market. And all that against the background of last years’ broad test. The perception is comparable to the evaluation of absolute school marks without the information that the marks were given in different school types. So this is not an objective basis for advice for the consumers.

(…)

Author: Markus Fritsch

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