When it's your first time visiting an industry trade show it's hard to really know what to expect. The anticipation of what it could be like was far from what the reality truly was, and the reality of what it truly was, was mindblowing.
Eurobike is the biggest cycling trade show of the year and it is spead across five different halls, some as big as your local Westfield shopping mall. This years event drew over 1900 unique exhibitors!
The exciting but daunting task of tackling each hall and getting 10+km of walking in each day was a feat in itself, let alone speaking with each vendor and making crucial connections along the way! The amazing news being that Bike Matrix, and the concept of the product that we are creating, was exceptionally well received by all walks of the industry. We came away from the event with close to 100 new connections with global brands, all of which were very keen to come on board, think the likes of Hope, Industry 9, Cane Creek, Enduro Bearings, Rocky Mountain, Kona and Marin just to name drop a few!
We were humbled by the conversations hard and the partnerships that were formed and solidified just by this event alone.
Now it would be remiss to mention Eurobike and not mention all of the amazing new innovations being brought to light. Everywhere we looked there was something new and shiny being brought into production. But of all of these products one truly caught our eye and that was Classified Cycling's new two speed hub. Just when you thought 2x was dead, Classified has set out and redesigned the wheel, literally. Using wireless technology, satellite buttons and ring shifters, it really is a sleek operation. But why, you might ask? To bring gear ratios closer together and optimize the ability to find that perfect gear range for every situation, no more settling for second best! Even better still, we saw a hint of potential, speccy paint designs for the truly customized look.
There were plenty of other shiny things to catch the eye, but on a similar cutting edge note was the new Pinion E1.12s Motor Gearbox Unit. It is a combination of their longstanding internal gear box combined with 800W of power with 85Nm worth of torque, it creates an incredible 600% gear range with nicely spaced increments that only take milliseconds to shift. When it comes to ebikes and durability and reliability of the drivetrain, Pinion have nailed the next leap forward in technology!
The more we looked the more we saw the micromobility market continuing to evolve with cargo bikes continuing to be taken to the next level and ebike continuing to push boundaries when it came to capacity v.s. weight. Halls were dominated by emerging brands that were new to the market, each bringing with them a new take on design and features to wow riders.
Kona hands down took home the award for stand execution and culture with the team bringing to life a ramshackle hut with true beach and bike vibes. It was a welcome sight to break up the stands and showed the true personality of the brand and its team. It was cool to see their unique style and take on the event that left the reaming stands for dead!
To round it out there were even a few veteran industry celebrity names flying around and lunch was had with Gary Fisher, we rubbed shoulders with Alee Denham after years of following his travels on Cycling About, and we stopped off to see the Calvin Jones from Park Tool, which for any mechanic is a name you can aloud in your sleep from all the Park Tool educational videos Calvin has championed over his 15 year stint.
The event itself was monumental and was incredibly well executed, we are already looking forward to next year!
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