Doug Huffman

Can you tell us what is in DIN 14674, what it requires, how many pages, how much it costs (US$ 77)? Can you cite the statute prohibiting sale of non-conforming to DIN 14674 products? Thanks for your help.

Boudicca

DIN numbers are German (and European, I think) standards for specific things. So home phones will have one particular DIN number and cellphones another, and if something does not have a DIN number it can't be sold legally. But I suspect that's the wrong number -- Googling shows it deals with fire alarms and such matters.

More Googling points to DIN 79100 as dealing with adult bicycles. It talks about things like where the brakes are (front wheel, left side) and what sort of markings you need on the seat post.

My bicycle German is not enough to get all the details. For German readers, here is a page with more detail.

arcticexp

Sorry , 14764 typo. As mentioned by @Boud,American google can help answer basic questions.

edit, existing for Brompton's conform:

https://www.brompton.co.uk/page.asp?p=3069

"
All Bromptons exceed the requirements laid down by British Standard BS6102, European Standard EN14764, German Standard DIN 79100, and other relevant regulations in every other market in which they are sold.
"

fietsbob

Anyhow, Brompton runs a 1"Quill down thru the (threaded) fork steerer to reinforce it..
As I see it, [remotely]
Bike friday's Tikit has that whole Quick fold cable release scheme , running thru a hollow tube,
so cannot do that.. Instead the steerer tube has the fork Crown made
such that it clamps on the under side .. around the open tube..

Foldable Two

Viewed the British Standards and required tests. Only comment - since I am not an engineer - is that a bike could pass muster to initially get passed, and then be out of compliance due to sub-standard materials or improper manufacture or assembly later on.

Have no idea how tikit stem would do if tested to these standards, or how test they are doing now compares. Any qualified engineers out there?

Lou

jur

The standards govern design, generally. So a product has to be designed to comply, and often, 3rd party tested, proving compliance. Production quality is a different issue. Manufacturers are liable to produce according to the relevant standards. Checks may or may not be done, depending on the entity who issued the compliance certificate.

tcs

Life cycle vibration and shock testing? Sure, it's an industry standard. I've spent many hours bolting things to shake tables, analyzing results and occasionally taking the pieces back to the laboratory.

For an example of how another small bicycle company did this, see minutes 11-14 of this video.

Since this is the second cracking problem discovered in the tikit design, I'm suspecting BikeFriday performed no testing like this before releasing the product to customers.

Foldable Two

Good replies from both jur and tcs - couldn't view video via the link, though.

So what standards apply to bicycles manufactured/marketed in the U.S.? Are there any formal approvals required?

Are there standards for Steel, Aluminum, and/or Carbon Fiber bikes? Curious as a consumer.

Lou

tcs

Hmph? Okay, here's what it is:

https://video.google.com/videoplay?do...70086389552343

or google: 'Alex Moulton the innovative engineer video'


Bicycles for new retail sale are regulated as toys by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the USA (versus, theoretically, as road vehicles by the Department of Transportation). The bulk of the standard was written decades ago and very few adult folding bicycles meet the entire thing. There is no enforcement beyond occasionally investigating a complaint by consumers or by an industry competitor. Here's a summary of the USA requirements for bicycles:

https://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/regsumbicycles.pdf

Foldable Two

Could only get to video via Google search, as suggested, but have only 3G here on the coast (not the 4G at home) so have not tried to view a 20 min video, which would take 2-3 times that long to download.

Read most of U.S. Regulations - pretty light weight compared to European ones. Does anybody really test to these? Is there any regulation here that would have prevented current tikit safety issue?

(It should be noted that many Americans think Gov't regulations such as these stifle creativity and innovation, as well as making our products non-competitive in the marketplace by adding to their cost.)

Lou

Lalato

New update today from BF... https://www.bikefriday.com/momentum/tikit_stem

Foldable Two

Now the '$64 Question' - will the engineer, who reviewed and passed on their tests and identified solution, actually ride a tikit for any length of time?

Lou

kamtsa

Looks like he does

https://viktikit.blogspot.com/2008/03...its-latch.html

Foldable Two

Actually, I was referring to the engineer who volunteered to review their work, not Rob English, Green Gears resident engineer. (Yes, Rob does ride one.)

Lou

arcticexp

This doesnt even seem like real question - out of 4000 tikits they say there is maybe 100 with a problem, that's 2.5% failure over period 5 years. Odds already in favor of everyone not have accident, especially catastrofic. So they improve this, and question is if people will trust decision ? Higher probability of having accident for non-stem related issue.

tcs

So there's a 97.5% chance the stem on my tikit won't break and dump me face first onto the pavement. Makes one wonder why BikeFriday issued the do-not-ride-your-tikit warning in the first place.

I was interested that they blamed the problem on a supplier:

"The original design was created for specific steel tubing for the steer tube. Our research into this uncovered the fact that we were delivered tubing that did not meet our specifications. We were unaware of this change in delivery of our supplier."

But - BikeFriday has also changed their design. If it was really just a supplier/material problem...all they would have needed to do was rebuild their original design with the correct specification tubing.

"We will begin building tikits with this new stem this week."

Well, that's just peachy. Wonder how long it will be before the tikit they've already sold me is rideable again? Will the new part be visibly different once installed, so I can prove my tikit has been upgraded if I sell it? Will BikeFriday do any advertising/PR to support the resale value of their troubled design?

Lalato

Don't know how long it will take, tcs, but it appears that they are on it. There was another update yesterday...

https://www.bikefriday.com/momentum/tikit_stem

keke

Been following with interest. They're replacing ALL Tikit stems? Wow! I guess they could simply have done a batch recall of the affected production run.
I'm impressed. And from a relatively small outfit too!

brakemeister

Thats were product liability insurance comes in :-)

kamtsa

If they have one, the coverage is not great:

"The financial requirements are large, and we have begun to look for possible investors"

I am impressed with their transparency. Hopefully they will survive this ordeal. This is one of those 'small businesses' that everybody is talking about these days.

Foldable Two

That was like a "joke".

feijai

Update #6 from Alan Scholz: they are starting to send out replacement stems, plus money to have it installed. It's a full replacement: you specify the color, weight, frame size, stem type, the whole thing. You can also specify how urgent the need is.

https://www.bikefriday.com/momentum/t...em_replacement

NeoteriX

I don't own a BikeFriday so I have nothing vested in this, but I did read about the issue with interest. I think it's fair that they are doing a redesign as well, as one of the flaws of the original design, even when built to spec, was that the two-part design could conceal damage/breakage, which led to the poorly supplied part to become damaged over time without anyone noticing. It looks like the outer-ring covered up the slow cracks, whereas a single fabricated part would demonstrate exterior damage.

If you're concerned about resale, I think you can just keep your invoice of the new part. Alternatively, I'm thinking it would be not too hard to tell a single fabricated piece versus two welded together. Wouldn't there be weld marks?

vik 

The answer to your first question is liability. One serious preventable accident could put the company out of business. I'm no insurance expert, but I wouldn't be shocked for their liability insurance to have some clauses requiring them to minimize risk on any known product failures.

I inspected my Tikit and continue to ride it. I am comfortable with my understanding of steel and how I ride the bike to evaluate that risk. I bet a lot of other Tikit owners did the same. The ones that didn't feel comfortable stayed off their bikes which is probably a good thing.

The answer to the second is that the risk of trying to evaluate each Tikit to determine the whether or not the stem is at risk from a failure was probably higher than the cost of simply replacing them all. Even if your Tikit is fine what would happen if you tried to sell it with the old stem? And if a Tikit with a bad stem didn't get fixed and was sold off as being one that was fine the rider would end up suing BF. This way any Tikit with the old style stem can be identified and fixed. Any Tikit with the new style stem is safe.

All in all it's a sensible course of action for Bike Friday to take on all accounts in my opinion.

Lalato

One of the more interesting factoids to come out of this is that there are somewhere north of 4000 Tikits out in the wild. No wonder I never see any.