Exhibitors Look to the Future Despite Smaller Eurobike

Frankfurt, Germany

The European bicycle market took a battering last year, with sales for the 2024 calendar year down significantly, particularly when measured by value.

But early figures from the first quarter of 2025 are showing a strong recovery and there was a sense of optimism at this year’s Eurobike show.

For a combination of reasons that probably included last year’s reduced European sales, caution from Asian manufacturers due to the Trump tariff wars and concern over the high total cost of exhibiting, this year’s Eurobike was in my estimation about 20% smaller in terms of floorspace than last year.

The organisers did their best to hide the gaps with spacious café’s and lounge areas within the exhibit halls, but they would have felt the drop in booth sales revenue.

They also lost a lot of revenue through fewer attendees because it’s expensive to attend, particularly for trade attendees, who pay €95 (A$170) at the door for a one day ticket. This year 31,270 trade and 30,420 public visited Eurobike – a total of 61,690. That was down from 35,080 trade and 33,090 public visitors in 2024, a total of 68,170 representing a fall of 9.5%.

At the show they saw about 1,500 exhibitors from around the world, down from 1,800 last year. But there was still plenty to see, as organisers say that the show covered a total area of 130,000 square metres including both the indoor and outdoor exhibits.

One bright spot for show organisers was that international visitors as a proportion were up to 53.7% of visitors, compared to 49.2% last year. In other words, over half of the visitors came from outside Germany this year.

Perhaps sensing that they need to do something to stem the decline, at the media preview day, Eurobike’s General Manager, Stefan Reisinger, announced that next year there will be two separate, more focused events, running concurrently at the Frankfurt venue.

The new event, “Mobifuture”, will focus on all aspects of urban and connected mobility. In Stefan’s words at the announcement, “Including all forms of micromobility smaller than a car!”

Meanwhile the main Eurobike show will return to its sporting roots, focusing on road, gravel and mountain biking. Eurobike started back in 1991 and was able to overtake other long-established European bicycle shows by embracing the then-emerging concept of mountain biking.

Looking at overall trends, clearly e-bike drive systems are continuing to improve. Batteries are becoming more energy dense. Motors see ever-increasing torque for either the same or slightly less size and weight.

But I think the fastest area of development is the combination of more compact motors with various forms of integrated transmissions, which are then combined with new software to provide seamless automatic gear shifting, based on the rider’s cadence. These systems often allow for a low maintenance belt drive to the rear wheel, eliminating the need for a chain or derailleurs.

Clearly this won’t be the solution for all types of bikes, and for now, the price will be high. But for the average rider who just wants a simple, set and forget experience, these systems will be attractive once they’re fully proven and widely available at a reasonable price.

In this article, I’ll focus upon what I considered to be some of the most interesting new products on display.

There’s an emerging niche sub-category within bikepacking bags – super small, light, aerodynamic bags for those competing in long distance, unsupported competitive gravel an adventure riding events, such as this example from Cyclite.

Shimano’s new Q’Auto system enables self-powered electronic automatic gear shifting for analogue bikes. It’s powered by a front hub dynamo that connects via a wire that’s internally routed through the frame to a Shimano Cues Di2 rear derailleur. No batteries are required, but it won’t be cheap – probably for bikes upwards from $4,000.

Of the thousands of e-bikes and drive motors on display at Eurobike, this was possibly the lightest, weighing 1.2kg. It’s made by Urtopia, a relatively small company of 70 employees, based in Shenzhen, China. The company’s background is in robotics, mobile phones, headphones and other consumer electronics.

The motor is designed for road bikes, light gravel bikes and city bikes. It’s still a prototype with only one working example at Eurobike. But I had pre-arranged to have an exclusive test ride around the show hall. It seemed to have plenty of power and fairly low noise, but I could feel some vibration at low frequency. There was also a disconcerting lag before the power cut out when I stopped pedalling. The Urtopia team said they could program this lag time up and down and for some inexplicable reason, chose to make it longer on this sample bike.

Maxon still just finding it’s feet in the bike industry, but the overall business is 68 years old. It’s a Swiss company with 3,000 employees worldwide that specialises in compact, high performance drive systems in the medial, aeronautical, automation and mobility markets.

They started with a single hub motor and have new produced this new mid-drive motor that has one of the lowest “Q factors” (lateral pedal spacing) of 165 mm.

By setting the motor at right angles to the final drive, it can be concealed within the lower downtube allowing for more discrete frame designs.

Maxon has production in four countries and offices in 40 countries, including Australia. Their new drive has been specified by about six niche bike brands so far, with they say, more to be announced soon.

This is a fully operational injection moulding machine that was in action at Eurobike, making a new integrated handlebar/stem every 62 seconds.

Paul Zwicklhuber is holding the finished product. He’s pointing to where two carbon fibre inserts are fitted underneath the bars, that reduce deflection by 10%.

Injection moulding is commonly used for countless numbers of relatively cheap products from plastic garden chairs to toothbrushes. But it’s pushing the limits of this technology to make handlebars with the same weight and feel as aluminium bars.

Key differences are that they’re 50% cheaper and thanks to the automation, can be competitively produced in high wage countries. They can also be easily recycled.

Engel was founded in 1945 and employs 6,500 workers. They’re already making these handlebars for Canyon and looking to expand their customer base.

These Vibe grips from VP have been deliberately made to feel sticky. They claim that their Vibe material has far better vibration dampening qualities than conventional grips.

Park Tool’s new PRS 30 workstand is a relatively low cost stand for bike shop, home or outdoor use that lifts heavy e-bikes up and down using either a crank handle or any power drill with a 10mm bit. It will retail for US$899 (A$1,375).

Park Tool was also showing their new BMT-1 bead breaker that they say is ideal for tubeless tyres that have particularly tight beads. It will retail for US$36.95 (A$57)

Vittoria were displaying a range of new tyres suitable for gravel riding or hardpack MTB riding.

This Terreno Pro model is made from 92% recycled or renewable materials. They claim it has increased performance of 5% less rolling resistance, 18% more puncture resistance and 19% more grip compared to their Terreno T60 mixed gravel endurance model.

It’s in part made from rice husks and soybeans. The carcass is cotton, reinforced by nylon from old fishing nets.

If you wondered why e-bikes are more expensive, have a look at the complexity inside Shimano’s EP-801 e-MTB motor that was displayed on the huge Shimano stand at Eurobike. The clear Perspex parts are just to hold this ‘exploded view’ display sample in place.

This is the new Shimano XTR M9260 model rear derailleur that is slightly different from their standard M9250 model.

It is wire powered and features auto shifting and pre-shifting. Shimano recommends combining it with their LinkGlide cassettes for smoother shifting under load.

Shimano were also promoting their ongoing Trail Born program through which they’ve committed to donate US$10 million (A$15.4 million) over 10 years to fund MTB trail development and advocacy.

Each year about 300 new products compete for the annual Eurobike Awards. As you can see, winning is a big deal! The audience are very loud and enthusiastic and winning gives important commercial cache to new products. There were 37 winners in total including nine product that won the top Gold Award, one Green Award and one Start-Up Award. You can see all the winning products and more details about the awards here.

Have a look where that pump in the foreground is connected… not to a tyre but to the workstand!

It’s another simple but ingenious solution for making affordable workshop stands that can lift heavy e-bikes and save strain on mechanics’ backs.

The Feedback Sports Pro Air Lift attaches to any standard floor pump or compressor and you simply pump up the bike to its required height.

It will be available from December 2025, weighs 9kg and will retail for US$725 (A$1,109).

Opitline is a brand of Lampa an Italian company founded in the 1960’s.

This Optimline Mini Pro is the middle size of three models of lightweight battery powered, USBC rechargeable compressors. This model will inflate about four mountain bike tyres, depending upon the size and required pressure and will retail for €60 (A$108).

Mavic released a new Crossmax Carbon lightweight wheelset that weighs just 1,695 grams for a pair, comprising 790 grams for the front wheel and 905 grams for the rear.

They feature an “instant drive 360” rear freewheel system and adaptive carbon layup with reinforcement at the spoke holes. These new wheels are currently only available for manufacturers, with aftermarket pairs on sale from January 2026 for €1,100 (A$1,980) per pair.

South African headquartered Leatt won a Eurobike award this year for their Gravity 5.0 helmet that they say is light enough and well enough ventilated to also be worn by enduro riders. It features nine of their blue turbine discs that enable the riders head to rotate slightly within the helmet in the event of impact with the ground, reducing rapid brain deceleration and consequent injury.

Co-founder Michael Lehnert holds their new 1kg lightweight version of their unique MASE airbag rider safety system. Unlike their larger versions, the new lightweight version is not able to carry other items or fit a hydration bladder.

Mase began making ski avalanche bags and has been in the bike market for years already, selling over 10,000 bags so far.

They inflate instantly with a loud pop, in 0.15 seconds, via a C02 cartridge, that can be replaced if the bag activates in a crash. Some models include and integrated back protector.
The system is activated via an electronic motion sensor which automatically switches on when the fastening buckle is closed. The larger model retails in Europe for €799 (A$1,438) and new inflator cartridges retail for €49 ($A88)

This chamois is a new application from D30, a UK based company that sells a wide range of cycling protective gear incorporating their D30 injection moulded elastomer material.

These Canyon branded nicks are designed for gravel riding, to reduce vibration. The knee guards are designed in conjunction with Specialized. The elastomer material is fully enclosed so that it does not touch the skin. It’s designed to flex and not induce power sapping movement resistance.

Stablead made their global launch at Eurobike 2025. It’s a new division of Tilta, a company that makes highly sophisticated camera mounts for the movie industry including big budget Hollywood stunt films, where they might use digitally controlled suspension to smooth the camera’s ride during a high speed car chase.

Tilta think that this expertise can be applied to full suspension mountain bikes. It also might have something to do with one of their co-founders being an MTB enthusiast.
CEO Yang Shao, pictured here said that the remarkably refined looking prototype bike he is standing next to was developed in just 25 days. The forks have 3D printed legs and carbon tubes.

They’re entering the market from August 2025 with stems, chainrings, cranks and pedals.
Next year they hope to follow up with a suspension fork and rear shock.

This is British manufacturer Hope’s new TR4 callipers for trail bikes. They feature a new bleed port and a new cam design that removes free brake lever stroke before the brakes engage. A new guide bushing on the piston keeps the modulation smooth.

These aren’t ordinary mountain bike tyres! They feature metal studs for extreme conditions including snow and ice, which is not surprising, because they’re manufactured in Finland.

They’re Suomi brand which literally means “Finland” in Finnish. This two year old company took over the old Nokian Tyre factory.

The metal studs are machine inserted after the tyre tread is moulded.

KMC has long been known as one of the world’s biggest chain manufacturers, making chains not just under their own brand but for Shimano. But more recently they’ve been expanding their line of chainrings including this MTB model.

A KMC spokesperson at Eurobike said that they were finding that some third party chainring brands were too soft and were prematurely wearing out their KMC chains, which in turn was costing them warranty claims. So they started making their own chainrings whose key feature is extra hardness.

This is Simon Reiberg, an engineering graduate from Germany who has spent the past 1 ½ years developing a new fork damping cartridge. It will be an aftermarket product that can be retrofitted into existing forks including Fox 38 and RockShox ZEB. One cartridge can be adjusted to a wide range of rider weights and riding styles.

Initially it’s coming as an enduro model with XC and DH models to follow.

Its key advantage is that it allows adjustments to be made by simply dialling up or down by the rider that would normally require an expert suspension tuner to be changing shims or other workshop adjustments.

This Vistar Power shift system is initially intended for road and gravel bikes. It will be released for aftermarket later in 2025 and is already available to bike manufacturers.

It combines a 12 speed cassette with a two speed hub, for a theoretical 24 gears. The rider just has to shift a single lever once each time and the electronic control system already knows which ratios overlap, so does double shifts automatically, to just give you 15 or 16 useable gears, depending upon what cassette you’re using.

It has Ant+ connectivity with Wahoo, Garmin and Bryton display units so your gear can be displayed.

Here’s your chance to buy one of the most exclusive and expensive mountain bikes ever sold!
Wayne Gardner lives in Monaco, but hails from Wollongong, NSW and rose to fame way back in the 1980’s when he rose through the ranks of Grand Prix motorcycle racing to become the 500cc Motorcycle GP World Champion in 1987.

Wayne sat down for a chat with me at Eurobike. “I rode dirt bikes from age 13 and also rode a bicycle to school and couldn’t understand why it didn’t also have suspension,” he recalled.
So I built a swingarm and mono shock for my Malvern Star Dragster and I was king of the kids! It even made the local paper.

“I always trained on bicycles through my motorcycle racing career and always wanted my own bicycle brand.

“I’ve been developing these new bikes in Monaco with local designers for the past three years. We’re only selling 87 copies of each model (X4R Trail, X4R Gravity and S3R Urban) because my racing number was 87 and that was the year I won the World Championship.”

“There going to be collector’s item. We’re creating a G87 club with special access to events,” he concluded.

And the price of admission to this club? As the saying goes, if you need to ask, you can’t afford it… €23,000 (A$41,400).

Here’s a completely new take on how to make bicycle gears. You really need to see Praxis’ new HiT system in operation to believe it. HiT is short from Hinged Transmission. As you can see from the close up photo, it consists of a larger cog that is in four sections. These can be electronically actuated to fold down, revealing a smaller cog that is in exactly the same alignment as the larger one, so no derailleur or lateral movement of the chain is required.

Looking at the second photo, you can see that this entire system is encased within a mid mount gearbox, and here’s where it gets even more interesting. If Praxis put two of the HiT devices in the gearbox they get four speeds, ie 2×2. If three they get 2x2x2 = 8. In fact, they’re trailing up to four which means 2x2x2x2 = 16 speeds.

This system is still in prototype format with no on-sale date announced. Their goal is to integrate their gearbox with an electric motor – one of multiple new systems with this aim that were on display at Eurobike.

Certainly not as visually arresting as some of the new bike components on display, but Weldtite are claiming big improvements with their wax, thanks to a new formula which doesn’t separate when stored and lasts 300 km instead of about 70 km with the previous formula.

It’s also a bio wax, meaning environmentally friendly. Weldtite’s container includes a ball bearing in the lid so that it seals the container when it’s in your toolbox or on the trail with you.

With so many new internal gearbox systems emerging, both mid-drive and within rear hubs, it’s likely that demand for belt drives will increase over coming years.

French manufacturer Hutchinson has been making bicycle tyres for 135 years – since 1890 making a huge range across road, gravel, mountain and city bikes.

They’re now branching out into belt drives, initially with two models, one for utility riding and one for sports.

Their belt profile is different from that of the market leader, Gates, meaning that their chainrings and cogs will not be compatible.

Specifically, all belts need a method of centring themselves and not slipping off to either side. Gates does this via a cut in the centre of the belt and ribs in the centre of their chainrings and cogs. Hutchinson in contrast has a rib in the centre of the belt, which it claims makes the belt stronger and has cuts in the centre of the chainrings and cogs.

Hutchinson revealed prototypes of their belts previously, but at Eurobike they revealed their production samples for the first time.

As I’ve already mentioned in this article, multiple companies at Eurobike were displaying new, or refined versions of mid-drive combined motor and gearbox systems. I test rode this one from Owuru and it felt remarkably smooth, quiet and worked perfectly. You simply set the cadence you want to ride at, which you can also dial up or down on the fly while you’re riding and then the bike keeps you at that cadence, regardless of your speed.

The motor technology was developed over the past decade by another company, E2 Drives. It’s an infinitely variable drive, so rather than feeling any gear changes, it’s adjusting in tiny increments that you don’t notice. It’s designed in Belgium and assembled in France.

The sample I rode was on a Btwin bike which is the house brand of the massive global sporting goods retailer Decathlon. Decathlon sells an estimated three million bicycles per year worldwide making them one of the world’s biggest bicycle retailers. My sample bike retailed at ‘only’ €2,700 (A$4,860) which seemed like great value when this system felt at least as good, if not better, than other automatic gear systems I rode on far more expensive bikes.

Intradrive is a six person start-up company from Edinburgh, Scotland that has come up with the GD8, an eight speed gearbox / motor system that fits to the frame via a standard Shimano EP8 mounting, which is slightly smaller than a standard Bosch mount.

They claim that it’s the most compact combined gearbox and drive unit on the market. It’s also a fully sealed system designed with muddy mountain bike trails in mind, as no doubt there’s plenty of mud on the trails in Scottland.

It might not have the same technical innovation as some of the products on show at Eurobike but if you’re in the market for a gravel bike with a classic Italian retro style, then this steel-framed Cinelli Speciale Gravel might be just the thing.

Is this a 29’er with a small frame? No, it’s a 32 inch featuring the new Maxxis Aspen 32 tyres.

The frame is a one-off concept bike called Project Big Ben that was created by Faction Bike Studio.

I featured a “Dirty Sixer” 32 inch bike model as part of my 2025 Taipei Cycle coverage. The bikes are designed to give a better ride geometry for very tall riders. In particular, more stability thanks to a longer wheelbase that puts more of their body weight within the front and rear axles rather than overhanging, particularly on steep descents or ascents.

On 31st March 2025 it was announced that Yamaha would acquire the e-bike drive unit business of Brose. Brose is a huge automotive parts manufacturer – 100 years old, employing 31,000 people across 24 countries with annual sales of €7.7 billion (A$13.9 billion). But despite this huge scale and expertise in making similar components, after trying for years, they clearly couldn’t crack the super competitive e-bike drive system market that’s dominated by their German contemporary Bosch, followed by Shimano.

At Eurobike, Yamaha launched Qore. It’s a new brand based on the English word “core” to emphasise that the drive system is the core of an ebike. Qore will be designed and manufactured by the original Brose team, based in Berlin.

Last year, Chinese drone and consumer electronics manufacturer DJI was the hottest new exhibitor at Eurobike, when they launched their brand new DJI Avinox e-bike drive system that they’d been developing in complete secrecy for the previous three years.

This year they were back, along with their original bike brand partner Amflow… plus seven additional bike brands now spec’ing bikes with the DJI Avinox system.

This panorama photo shows all of the new brands, which from left to right are: Velo de Ville, Commencal, Rotwild, Unno, Forbidden, Megamo and Crestline.

Most of these brands are not currently distributed in Australia, but it’s highly likely that more brands will follow soon.

Should young kids just ride normal analogue MTB’s?

Eightshot Bicycles does not think so and were displaying a couple of different models of kid’s e-mountain bikes. One reasoning for kid’s ebikes is that if mum and dad are on e-bikes, the kids won’t be able to keep up without and e-bike of their own.

This Loamer 24 inch wheel model is for kids 7 years and older in the range of 128cm-155cm tall. It features a Mahle rear hub motor with 45nm of torque and a 250Wh battery which is enough to give a light kid 90 km of range.

Of the 1,500 booths at Eurobike, these guys possibly had the most creative backdrop… if only I could remember what they were selling!

Not a new bike, but an upgraded motor. The compact TQ motor with it’s unique harmonic pin ring gear reduction system was launched at Eurobike a couple of years ago. If the size progression of their booth each year is any indication, they’re going well as they had a much larger and busier booth this year. Their big announcement this year was a new model, the HPR60 that gives 60nm of torque with the same size and only 70 grams more weight than the HPR50. It also has more power and better cooling.

The compact motor helps Yeti to produce this MTe model at a weight of just 17.5 kg.

A blast from the past. This 2001 Nicolai DH1 still looks innovative today, even though it’s now 24 years old.

Tax advantaged bike leasing is a huge business in Germany and there were multiple competitors exhibiting in one end of Hall 21.1 at Eurobike. Of the many companies in this market, JobRad is the market leader, reflected by their two story booth with meeting areas upstairs.

If only the Australian government would follow Germany’s lead, they could give our market a massive boost with a simple change to leasing regulations to let customers finance bike purchases with pre-tax income.