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.

TOUR 08/2009
Reading time 1:10 minutes

In the time warp

With new ideas regarding the seating position on the futuristically designed time-trial machine "Time Warp" the Taiwanese bicycle giant Merida intends to establish for good in the Champions League of road racing bicycle construction

Once you have tested a time trial machine perfectly adjusted to your needs, you get hooked – hooked on speed. On well-known tracks that you normally breeze on a classical road racing bike at 32 to 35 kmph there is all of a sudden the "4" on the speedometer – and a large grin on your face. However, the magic word is "perfectly adjusted". Adjusting a comfortable and aerodynamically favourable posture on the time trial bike is rather difficult. The aero handlebars actually freeze the position. If the seating posture is not perfect, it’s not going well and you feel uneasy.With specific frames it’s true that they are made for specialists, but their demands may differ nevertheless a lot: The requirements for a short prologue trip extending over only a few kilometres, for a long time trial or the cycle track of a long-distance triathlon of 180 kilometres differ clearly. Whereas ironman athletes have to complete their fast ride with a marathon run, road racers can have themselves heaved down by crane from their racing machine directly onto the massage bench. That is to say they can adopt far more radical positions. This confronts bicycle manufacturers with the difficult task of combining two worlds. Radical aero positions are, however, only possible by designing a frame with a low front. The ironman striving for comfort would choose lots of spacers and a steep stem for such kind of frame. This would result in a squishy riding experience, the fast look in stationary would be gone. (...)

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