"According to which standard are we supposed to test?", is on top of the list of the FAQs of the past weeks. The answer is quite simple: According to ISO and, of course, beyond depending on the requirements to the bicycle.
Since August 1, 2015, the ISO standard 4210 has been the only bicycle standard for city, trekking, mountain, road and youth bikes in force. All ISO related countries had to withdraw their previous national standards and to implement the ISO as national standard. In Germany the standard therefore reads DIN EN ISO 4210, in France NF EN ISO 4210, in Great Britain BS EN ISO 4210 and so on. As regards the minimum requirements concerning bicycle safety, countries from A like Australia to U like United States are on the same level. For this reason the moderately adjusted ISO standard based on the previous EN standard should be considered very positive, as it is in force (almost) all over the world.
However, don’t consider yourself safe after a successfully passed ISO test. Bicycles doing harder service, higher additional loads or in the case of mountain bikes harder conditions of use require harder tests.
We don’t want to hype up scare, but this is simply based on the experiences of our test customers. In the past they had repeatedly been concerned by breakages in the field in spite of successfully passed tests according to the standards by the suppliers in Asia. Smart tests going beyond the standard can decrease the complaint rate significantly, hereby reducing the risk of being held responsible for severe losses and damage.
We’ll provide you with more information on the ISO standard in our next newsletters.