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.

TOUR 07/2003
Reading time 0:45 minutes

Missing the mark?

Lightweight, expensive, fancy: manufacturers discovered handlebars and stems to be fashionable trend parts. But is the chic stuff also technically mature? TOUR took eleven current combinations off the catwalk and tested them thoroughly.

Over ten years ago, the first threadless steering bearings appeared on roadbikes in Europe. The system’s potential, which became popular under it’s inventor’s brand name – Aheadset – remained undetected for a long time and was only very slowly accepted by the market. Meanwhile, hardly any roadbike is sold without the handy bearing anymore which has radically changed the bike in this field. Only threadless fork stems have allowed for handlebar, stem and fork to weigh less together than handlebar and stem before the age of Ahead.

Apparently, this has become a lucrative market, as manufacturers of handlebars and stems very frequently throw new, imaginative models on the market. They lure and advertise with precious materials like carbon or magnesium and sometimes cause confusion with new and non-uniform sizes – the idea of oversizing does not spare handlebars either.

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Author: Dirk Zedler

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