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.

BIKE 12/2006
Reading time 0:45 minutes

Carbon handlebars

The assembly is decisive for riding fun or failure

Having analysed many broken handlebars in my engineering office one thing became very clear: The major part of failed handlebars, ie, stems was caused by incorrect assembly.

Therefore, adhere to some advice: Always assemble handlebar and stem of the same manufacturer and the same quality line. Comply with the torques indicated for the bolts by using an adequate torque wrench and regularly control the torques. Assure yourself at the manufacturer’s whether the torques indicated also apply to carbon handlebars. Since with fittings the torques printed on, often are too high for carbon handlebars! Therefore assemble parts like brake levers, bar ends and stems with some special carbon-assembly-paste within the marks printed on by the manufacturer. This paste increases friction – thereby achieving safe hold of the parts already with low bolt forces (material-gentle torque).

If you want to cut short your handlebar, check with the manufacturer where the reinforced parts for bar-end-clamping, brake- and shift levers are. If these parts are not clamped on the reniforcements, a break is preprogrammed.

Author: Dirk Zedler, graduate engineer, BIKE writer and bike expert

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