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.

Hello,

Since December 2012 we've regularly provided our customers and partners with information on testing and technical documentation issues – key words: obligation to instruct, legal situation – in a German newsletter. From now on this highly appreciated newsletter will be published in English language as well, to keep our worldwide customers and partners also up to date.

"Riding stability remains a problem", that’s what the specialist press filtered from the last newsletter on the subject of testing solutions and/or monitoring to improve the riding behaviour of pedelecs. A conclusion, which is certainly not true. We don’t want to criticize from the Ivory Tower. We want to eliminate weak points or prevent them from coming up by providing you with clear parameters in comparison to the values of sound products. We point out individually the potential for improvement instead of making recommendations only by the seat of our pants. You can therefore constructively fix things where actually necessary.

It’s always not only technology, but also the accompanying measures to the products which are essential and of major importance. In fact, it has been stipulated by each law, directive or standard relating to product safety for many years that operating or assembly instructions in the respective national language must be supplied with the product. The requirements on the product marking are precisely defined as well.

It is relatively new, however, that these requirements are partly subject to stringent controls and fined in the event of non-observance. Once lawyers and attorneys as well as judges ask for the complete documentation of an exclusively muscle-driven bicycle following an accident or just by chance, experience has shown that in the case of pedelecs missing or insufficient accompanying documents are a reason to fine manufacturers regardless of that and to threaten a sales ban.

Our experienced team stands by your side to prevent you from that, not only with advice and assistance, but with finished products.

We do not only warn you, we don’t accuse and don’t want to inspire fear. We offer solutions to pave the way for a positive means of transport and sports equipment, the bicycle, in a positive future.

With kind regards
Dirk Zedler

User manuals: saving means losing

User manuals? "Well yes, there’s no without, says legislation. But we’ll keep it on low flame, they only generate costs and after all, hardly anyone reads them. We’ll certainly find something less expensive, something standardized."

That’s how controllers or product managers often handle the subject of documentation. But what many of them don’t know: In the event of a liability claim, it will be checked carefully whether the bicycle is described and categorized sufficiently in the accompanying documentation. This means, in the case of a user manual at least, it must be provided in the official language of every country the product is sold in.

This is defined and available for reference in virtually each relevant European law as well as in the respective standards and ISO standards. Already here begins the border area between acceptable and unacceptable.

In particular translations from Asia or Eastern Europe make people laugh, because the texts are nearly incomprehensible. Such kind of texts, however, can have serious consequences in the event of a liability claim. A good (multilingual) user manual must meet certain quality standards. For this reason our manuals are translated exclusively by graduate translators, mostly native speakers who are absolutely familiar with the world of bicycles.

A high-quality translation is not yet all you need: Ever since the verdict of the Higher Regional Court Nuremberg (OLG Nuremberg) awareness for the importance of user Manuals has been raised more and more. Already an imprecisely described field of use of a bicycle can have disastrous consequences. As once the loss has occurred, it’s too late.

Officially confirmed: high quality of user manuals

But how can you tell in advance, apart from linguistic clarity, whether a user manual provides highest liability security if the worst comes to the worst? The best solution and first choice for manufacturers producing large volumes of bicycles identical in design is the production of user manuals written individually for the products.

If your budget or production doesn’t allow this option, you may choose the "Basic" category of our high-quality user manuals. The quality of these manuals has proved to be good on the occasion of various controls by the authorities:

The manuals of several of our customers passed the test criteria of an all in all 11-page check list of the market surveillance by the trade licensing offices in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia "without initial suspicion", i.e. successfully. That’s not the rule.
The manuals of our business partners also passed the PrSG control procedures of the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (bfu) without deficiencies.
Standard testing conducted by stately authorized test laboratories in France: User manuals of our customers were repeatedly put to the test. They always proved to be compliant to the standards. There it is all the more important, as in our neighbour country the EN standards and in future the ISO 4210 standard are turned into law by decree.
With user manuals in more than 30 languages, our customers are acting successfully on the markets of the world. During the nearly 20 years in which we have been developing user manuals, our customers never informed us about bans on imports or problems with the authorities due to the technical documentation accompanying the product.

Top marks for you, top service for your customers

Stiftung Warentest, the German foundation for comparative product testing, is one of the institutions rating user manuals strictly with school marks. The results of the latest four tests in an overview:

Conclusion: In the past years our user manuals were exclusively among the "good" or "very good" rated manuals. They were never rated "satisfactory", "adequate" or even "inadequate".
Even though we don’t agree in many points with the technical test methods and a few results of the German product testers: We are happy with these continuously excellent results throughout the years which demonstrate that precise and meticulous work pays.

We should be glad to work out for you a perfect package from our portfolio. Depending on your wishes, quantities and budget we offer four different bicycle user manuals:

	test 2009-05	test 2011-08	test 2013-06	test 2014-08
Number of bicycles/pedelecs in the test	14	12	16	10
Rated "very good" all in all	4	Not awarded	Not awarded	2
Of these from the Zedler institute	3	./.	./.	1
Rated "good" all in all	3	6	6	2
Of these from the Zedler institute	1	1	5	1
Rated "satisfactory"	7	5	5	3
Of these from the Zedler institute	0	0	0	0
Rated "adequate" and "inadequate"	Not awarded	1	5	3
Of these from the Zedler institute	./.	0	0	0

User manuals - Basic

Cost effective option
Available from quantities of 50 pieces on
Rapid delivery, as available ex stock in DE, EN, FR;
Pedelec in 6 languages
No major stock holding costs for you
Clear A5-format
Reliable and easy-readable user manual with very good marks, always including the latest developments in technology and legislation

User manuals – Brand basic

Higher perceived value, as the customer recollects your branding
Eight pages that can be freely designed: Space for your brand, your guarantee and tips
Bicycle of your brand on fold-out cover (description of components)
Up to three languages per booklet

User manuals – Individual

Content like "Basic" and "Brand basic" manuals
Eight pages that can be freely designed: Space for your brand, your guarantee and tips
Up to 20 pictures, logos etc. in the contents, welcoming the customer, company brand in the contents
Up to three languages per booklet
Optional PDF-files for internet use and supplementary CD-ROM

User manuals – Premium

Option for individual components and fully assembled bicycles
Contents and cover are designed according to the portfolio of your brand
Photographs of your latest bicycle models are taken in all situations
Optional PDF-files for internet use and supplementary CD-ROM

14 bicycles for World Bicycle Relief

On occasion of this year’s Sachsenheimer Lichtenstern Tour the Zedler institute donated 30 euro cent per kilometre ridden by their team members, business partners, relatives and friends of the company to "World Bicycle Relief". The tour offered distances between 53 and 168 km (counted from the Zedler institute). Thanks to the large group of participants all in all 5,003 kilometres were collected. These allow for 14 new, solid Buffalo bicycles for Africa to be financed by the project.

Managing director Dirk Zedler: "Bicycles are a major source of income in Africa. After having sent there a number of second-hand bicycles directly in the past years, we are glad that this year our donation enables another 70 Africans to manage their lives a little better by the joint use of the bicycles.

Jury list for the "Grand SME prize 2015"

This year again, we made it onto the jury list in the competition "Grand SME prize" after having been nominated fortunately once again by the City of Ludwigsburg after our first nomination in 2014. By reaching the second level of the selection procedure (5,009 companies had been nominated for the first level) our Zedler – Institut für Fahrradtechnik und -Sicherheit GmbH ranges currently among the best 815 small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany. This demonstrates our consistent and innovative work as an enterprise in a future-oriented sector. And it proves that the bicycle is on its way to occupy a position which becomes more and more important in terms of mobility, for the economy as well as the society.