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 08/2000
Reading time 1:00 minute

Please hold on

A stem’s task is clear: to connect the handlebar firmly and safely to the fork steerer.

The sad truth looks different. Some stems cannot even fulfill this simple task. TOUR scrutinized popular stems in its test laboratory and checked the clamps’ reliability – with surprising results.

A horror scenario haunts road cyclist in their nightmares: material breach during the ride. With up-to-date bike technology, something like this should actually be impossible. But the trust in the material is not under all circumstances justified. At dealers, experts and insurance companies again and again cases go on the record in which it is very likely that the material caused the accident.

One component which in this context causes accidents time and again is the ahead-stem. The problem’s cause usually is the bolt connections of the faceplates. This actually clever part, which allows for quick handlebar changes, contains many sources of error. A basic problem is that many of these stems do not clamp the handlebar safely so that it can abruptly destabilize and twist. Also bolts which tore because they were underdimensioned or breaking threads already caused severe accidents. According to damage descriptions given to TOUR, not only one or two models are affected when particularly stressed, but quite a number of products by several manufacturers.

Author: Dirk Zedler

Go back