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 02/2000
Reading time 0:40 minutes

Under pressure (carbon fork steerers)

Carbon fibres are said to be very strong. But recently there have been several cases of carbon fork steerers cracking or breaking. TOUR started looking for the reason.

The photographer already pictured the magazine cover in his mind: The road cyclist in front of him was supposed to balance on his rear wheel – in front of the bright blue sky – and move slowly towards the camera. "This ought to look spectacular", thought the photographer. But what happened next took his breath away. The cyclist sped up, jerkily pulled up the handlebars – but instead of cycling on the rear wheel, only handlebars and stem shot up, the front wheel stayed right on the ground. With some acrobatic skills, the cyclist could avoid a crash – but both, cyclist and photographer, were really shocked.

What happened? It could not have been a riding mistake, the mechanics had not forgotten to tighten the bolts either. What was left was the worst option possible - a breakage. A careful check of the bike brought certainty: the lightweight-racer`s fork steerer had broken in the stem.

Author: Dirk Zedler

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