As I walked towards the main entrance to Eurobike, it was desolate. The slate of temporary bike parking spots that in previous years would have been overflowing with hundreds upon hundreds of bikes was empty. After passing through the doors, I walked nearly a kilometer through virtually empty connecting hallways to get to the show areas. Again, in previous years, these too would be slammed wall-to-wall with people trying to get to the main floor on show open.
But ultimately, the most ironic part of this opening day sequence was the very first thing I saw as I walked into the main hall. It was not a bike, but rather, a small 2-person Fiat electric car. Next to it, the above quad. Many have said it was this very thing that ultimately killed Eurobike – the show owners’ attempt to turn it into a combined micro-mobility show, rather than a bike show.
Eurobike’s claimed the number of exhibitors in the 2026 edition at 800, a fall from 1,500 exhibitors the year prior (2025), and 1,800 in 2024. I’d also take a wager that the number of exhibitors that actually showed up in 2026 is notably less than that 800 figure. There were a lot of random empty booth spots floating around.
I figured I’d take a moment to preemptively write an obituary of sorts to a show that I’ve attended 14 years’ worth of editions, across both Friedrichshafen and Frankfurt. And later on, I’ll explain why it’s dead, despite their half-hearted claims that it’s not.
Why It’s Fallen Apart:
In reality, it was a confluence of things (that included) that have killed Eurobike. Many big industry trade shows were on the decline even before Eurobike added cars, but their inclusion came along with the rest of the avalanche of things that killed the show. I won’t make this a super long post, but I do want to highlight the main areas:
A) The shift from Friedrichshafen to Frankfurt: Look, too many people have rose-tinted glasses about Friedrichshafen. It was a nightmare for everyone involved. Seriously, it really did suck logistically. Hotels booked a year in advance, and even then, you often had to commute 60-90 minutes each way each day to get to the show from said far-flung hotels (even across the lake on a ferry). The buses from the train station to the show were bafflingly bad at doing the one task they had to do: Transport you 2km. You could almost always walk faster, due to horrible traffic (but you’d be drenched by the sweltering heat). Still, once you managed to get to the showgrounds, the show was really good. There were reasonably nice places to ride in the apple-filled countryside. And the party-like atmosphere was good too. Frankfurt has none of that. There’s no soul to the show in Frankfurt. Which isn’t so suggest going back to Friedrichshafen. Rather, finding some middle-ground between the concrete jungle of the Frankfurt convention center and the logistical nightmare of Friedrichshafen.
B) The big brands leaving: I’m not even talking about American bike companies like Specialized or such, that happened many years ago. Rather, more recent brands are leaving. SRAM in the last year or two, Shimano & Bosche this year, and far too many to count. By itself, no individual brand is super important to a show this big (after all, companies like Apple aren’t on-show at massive events like CES), but many big brands missing start to make a dent. Especially when the gist of the show was that all the cycling brands were at it.
C) The medium-sized brands left too: Let’s just take a look at the sports tech segment I cover. Obviously, there may well be journalists covering other segments that still get value out of the show (for example covering eMTB gearboxes). But, in my realm, let’s count my usual suspects that are not there this year:
1) Garmin/Tacx (was there all prior years)
2) SRAM/Hammerhead (was there until last year)
3) Shimano (was there all prior years)
4) Wahoo (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
5) Elite (was there all prior years)
6) Magene (was there in recent years)
7) Bryton (was there in recent years)
8) Stages/Giant (was there all prior years)
9) Power2Max (was there last year)
10) 4iiii (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
11) SRM (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
12) All the smaller power meter companies (virtually none there now)
13) All the smaller aero sensor companies (I don’t think any this year)
14) Lezyne (was there all prior years, either on-floor or off-floor)
15) The major trainer apps: Zwift, Rouvy, MyWhoosh, TrainerRoad, Kinomap, etc… All these teams were onsite, even if only some of them had official booths, most had off-show booths for meetings. None were there, only icTrainer.
And again, that’s separate from other companies I’d be personally interested in talking to, like many (all the major?) cargo bike brands and such that disappeared. And beyond that, this skips over all the random sports-tech startups that sometimes made for interesting stories, too.
D) Product launch shift: As I’ve talked about for many years, for medium to bigger-sized brands, having a product launch at a trade show is mostly a dumb PR strategy. Your launch news is now shared amongst a gazillion other companies also announcing things. I remember back in 2019 at Eurobike, and having something like 14 full in-depth reviews, I had to somehow finish the morning of Eurobike launch (trainers, bike computers, power meters, even some watches). It never happened; some simply didn’t make the cut. And they were big-name companies that didn’t make the cut. Thus, companies shifted towards launching their products either at small private media events, or just by sending loaner units out.
E) Seasonality doesn’t matter anymore: It used to be that companies launched their products tied to the seasonality of Eurobike/Interbike, ahead of buying for the next season. For example, 10 years ago, you *always* launched new trainers in the August/September timeframe. Always, without fail. These days? You launch them whenever the heck you’re ready to ship. Consumers will buy it when they’re ready. People ride year-round, unlike skiing, which happens only a few months of the year.
F) The inclusion of non-bike micro-mobility: I’d actually argue that, as dumb as it was to have cars at a bike show, this was not what killed Eurobike. Nobody sat in their office and said: “The only reason I’m not going to Eurobike is because I saw an electric Fiat in a booth”. On social media, perhaps, but not in real life. Instead, it was first all the other items above that killed Eurobike. Having quads in booths, or 90KPH-rated electric vehicles on the bike test-track (as I actually saw yesterday) was just the icing on the cake.
Finally, I’d suggest going and reading Suvi’s piece over at Escape Collective on a lot of other factors. There are also some intra-Germany trade group organizational factors that contribute to it (though, I’d argue that by the time these groups got in on being upset, the above items were already the core factors).
And of course, there are aspects like how COVID ushered in more companies doing meetings and such digitally, but I actually don’t buy that as much here. After all, some other cycling shows/events are still just as popular as in the past. Escape noted the Rouleur Live show as a good example. And indeed, I went there a year or two ago, and it was fantastic. But you know what made it fantastic? I didn’t write anything about it.
I went, I met with everyone I knew in the industry to catch up on all the things. But there was no big product launch tied to it. Instead, it was the networking-like event that the industry wants, without the baggage of Eurobike. Consumers are welcomed, which gives it a marketing reason to exist for companies, while the tight confines of the venue means that individual booths are tiny (reducing costs).
Going Forward:
Now, about now, some of you may be saying, ‘Wait, Eurobike isn’t dead yet?!? They announced next year’s 2027 dates!’. And that’s true (now back in early September 2027). But equally true is that quietly announced the show won’t be coming back for 2028, and instead will attempt to shift to a every other year format starting in 2029. Of course, they didn’t issue that in a press release on their site, but rather, via a daily show notes that doesn’t go into the main press release feed.
The reality is that’ll likely never happen. Sometime later, fall or early winter, I can near guarantee you the Eurobike will quietly announce cancellation of the 2027 show as well. Companies won’t have signed up for it. Especially after they get word of this years event. Short of them managing to convince all the biggest brands, plus companies like those medium-sized brands to come to the show (and announcing this), nobody else will fall in line. This is exactly what happened to Interbike years ago.
Almost everyone I talked to at the show felt it was a “giant waste of time” (that’s an exact quote from one company in the list up above). And had it not been for the interesting Canyon concept bike I covered yesterday, I certainly would have been in the same camp. There are perhaps a few other small things I could cover from it that I had some chats with, but most of that was minor updates/etc, rather than something I’d normally write a whole piece on. Effectively, stuff worthy of a quick gallery mention, rather than a deeper piece. Again, media or retailers covering other product segments might have still found some value this year.
Still, it’s a shame, because the best part of Eurobike wasn’t the product launches or new tech – it was meeting with the people behind the products. The engineers, product people, and founders who put together all these cool pieces of tech, and understand how the products came to be, and their thinking on the future ahead. Most of the time, I already had the unannounced products in for review anyway. Instead, my time there was spent in meetings with people about cool new things coming out down the road, or sometimes, just hearing the industry gossip. Perhaps Rouler Live is the place for that next, or perhaps somewhere else. We’ll have to see.
With that – thanks for reading, and all the RV rental memories!
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