Our European correspondent, Petor Georgallou, approaches Eurobike 2024 with his trademark gonzo style. Read on to follow Petor’s tracks into the wonder and weirdness of Europe’s largest cycling trade show.
“I’m a security guard.”
“Sure, but what do you really do? You’re too normal and not jaded enough to be a security guard. I know a side hustle when I see one. Sure, you’re wearing an asshole costume… but you’re not a real asshole. You’re here for the weekend on probably bullshit pay. What difference does it make if I come in or not? No one will even care; it’s a victimless crime. It’s not even a crime. I’m meant to be in there, the code they sent just isn’t valid.”
He smirked a gappy grin, breaking character for long enough that I knew he was even reachable, humane, and sensible.
“Let me see what I can do…”
He disappeared inside for a moment, so I spread the risk by diversifying my strategy and messaging everyone I knew who was inside until he returned.
“Ok, hold my book, and I’ll help you lift your bike up the stairs. Just don’t tell anyone.”
“What are you reading?”
“Nietzsche. I’m a philosophy student. You know it?”
“Wow… a nihilist, but you still made me work for it.”
“How did you know?”
And so for the first time, I entered amicably and made my way to the press office to retrieve my pass and fill a backpack with sandwiches and sparkling water.
For the first year ever, Eurobike had a dedicated handmade area put together by Eurobike, Radraum, Pinkbike, and Bespoked. I set out to go see my people and get stuck into the good stuff, but couldn’t help but get distracted.
Buffalo Bicycle
A giant red SRAM cube hangs from the ceiling, surrounded by the booths of brands SRAM has acquired. The red cube serves as a shining beacon of free coffee, so it was my first port of call. Amongst the SRAM brands was World Bicycle Relief, showing its first-ever overhaul of the Buffalo Bicycle.
This bike is perhaps the most innovative at Eurobike because it’s a very real-world, form-follows-function, essential design. It has ultra-durable parts, a rack that can carry a person, massive external bolts for super easy maintenance with generic tools, and costs less than any component on any bike I own. As such, it has remained unchanged for years. This year, however, it received a whole new drivetrain designed specifically for this bike.
The major new component is a 2-speed freewheel, which disengages one sprocket and engages the other by backpedaling 110 degrees. The drivetrain runs two standard single speed ⅛ or 3/32 chains, on two chainrings at the same time, with each having a perfect chainline all the time. The drivetrain adds a gear to the system to make the bike more efficient for users and no less reliable. If anything, there’s now a backup chain if one breaks, so there’s no downside to the system and a heap of benefits to user experience, usefulness, service life, and durability.
Other changes include losing the rear coaster brake in favor of a lever-operated one, and double-walled aluminum rims over the older single-walled steel rims. These bikes are heavy as hell, cheaply finished, and they aren’t great to ride. You can see the wrinkle in the steel on either side of the bend where the top tube has been formed on a mandrill press, and you can have any color you like as long as it’s black.
However, they are not awful to ride, they’re incredibly easy to maintain, and they are about as indestructible as bikes get. Most important of all, they’re made and distributed at a mind-bending low price point, all of which means they are incredible bits of design when it comes to the brief of making super inexpensive modes of transport for rural communities in Africa which are easy to maintain locally with little expertise and very few tools.
The Buffalo Bicycle is design at its best.
Igus Bike
The Buffalo Bicycle, with its impressive new transmission that I hope makes it onto commuters and city-hire bikes, made the Igus recycled plastic bike seem even worse. Igus is a pretty incredible company that makes exceptional products from predominantly recycled plastics, ranging from high-performance plastic bushings, energy chains, and worm gears to low-cost 6-axis robot arms.
There must be some super smart people working at Igus, coming up with innovative solutions to real-world problems. Four years ago, they first showed a bike concept made entirely from recycled plastics, which was kind of cool, as a way to showcase their “bearings” (plastic bushings). This year at Eurobike they brought along four working bikes to the test track from their initial production batch of 5000 units.
Concept bikes are cool. I can get behind concept bikes, however silly, but when those concepts go into production and become real, then I’m forced to consider them real bikes. I can comfortably say in no uncertain terms that the Igus is by a significant margin the worst bike I’ve ever ridden. The problem is that it’s made from plastic, which is perhaps the least suitable material for a bicycle as can be evidenced by the fact that other bicycles (of which there are billions) are not made from plastic. I’m not talking about fancy composites – the frame is made from rotomolded polyethylene, and while it is a bicycle frame and is probably an engineering marvel, it’s heavy as hell and rides worse than anything available on the market today.
The only thing Igus could do to make it worse is pile on more basically unsuitable plastic parts. You’ll never guess what they did…
From an ultra-heavy, poorly performing frame, they built a bicycle so bad that riding it around the test track made me angry. It creaked and flexed disconcertingly every which way, in every direction, both accelerating and decelerating. Cornering was not an option. I dropped down a curb, which I’m pretty sure bent the axle of the left pedal as I slowly made it around the hardest 500m I’ve ever ridden amidst the gawking stares of confused strangers.
When I go to bicycle hell, Igus will be waiting for me. The whole thing was very confusing, especially as they had a handful of parts (like handlebars) that could have utility on something like a city-hire bike for their corrosion resistance and flexy-damping nature. They also had some injection-molded frames on display, which in theory might work by adopting standard bike parts, so it was confusing that they let people ride around on the lumps of plastic which they claim are recyclable (thank goodness) knowing full well, because they can’t not, how bad these bikes are.
Before riding one, I was sold on the idea that it must be better than it looks; however, being only as bad as it looks would have been a real step up. I guess if you’d never seen or ridden a bicycle, and other modes of vehicular transport were unavailable, the Igus might seem like a good idea. It’s not even compatible with any standard parts, so you’re stuck with almost every part being made of inappropriate materials that perform far worse than anything else currently available. If I had to choose between the Igus and walking, I wouldn’t choose the Igus.
I’m probably wrong about everything, or perhaps I’m right. Still, in the process of global enshitification that doesn’t matter, so in six months’ time these hell machines will start popping up all over the place as city-hire bikes, which is what I understand the proposed use case to be. If not, there’ll be 5000 of them floating around that no one wants, in which case I’ll for sure buy one if the price is right to put in my little bicycle museum as the worst bike there ever was. Bicycle Pubes, do your worst. I double dare you with a cherry on top.
The tires were fine.
In Drust We Trust
Having spent a decent chunk of time together in the car and also for the duration of Bespoked, which immediately preceded Eurobike this year, cargo king Konstantin Drust failed to mention that the cargo bike I’d been ogling via Instagram would be there in the flesh.
I spotted it at the Gates booth on my way to the Handmade area. Despite his Lego approach to building, Konstantin builds some of the most aesthetically rational and highly functional bikes I’ve ever seen, all with his signature ultra-regular, perfectly un-filed fillets. A lot is going on here, and none of it is bad. Why don’t all front-loading cargo bikes have low rider racks on the front?
Tritao Aveiro 3D
Finally, with blinkers on, I powered through to the handmade area, resisting the wily charms of optimists, lunatics, and salespeople along the way, where I met Dmitry of Tritao. Having fled from Russia to Israel and Israel to Portugal, Tritao (triton in Portuguese) has finally set up a building again, with a gentle rebrand to the Portuguese language, as well as pacifying their logo by removing the points from the star to symbolize that they denounce war. Ironically, it was covered in blood because someone had tripped and caught themselves on the chainring badly enough to need medics to come and stitch them up.
Printed titanium parts were a wonder and a marvel, now they’re part of the course of the manufacture of high-end bicycles, a legitimate and valuable manufacturing technique that allows for short chainstays with high-volume tires or slightly lighter dropouts. On the Tritao Aveiro, printed parts are used as a functional solution to the problem, rather than as an aesthetic, which I have a lot of time for. This is a bike I’d love to ride, with clearance for 29 x 2.25 tires and a relatively aggressive geometry for a gravel bike. It’s made domestically in Europe to a relatively low price point, coming in at €2900 for a custom frameset.
Bonanno Futomaki
Built by Berlin-based Italian builder Nikolo Bonanno and named by mechanic Hiroshi after the fat sushi rolls (because of its large diameter tube set), I really enjoyed this fast road bike. It was clean, simple, and pared down, with a decently chosen tube set and all the parts I’d want to run except for either the stem or the seatpost, which on one level I wish matched, but on another level I’m fine with, as they’re each just the color of the material that they are made from.
I’m a big fan of the new SRAM Red AXS groupset, and I was excited to see a real bike with actual production QVIST hubs. I also like the weird anodized silver finish that they come in, which stacks nicely as part of a classy black and silver build kit.
Arko Bici
It was a real treat getting to hang out with Marek from Slovakia-based Arko Bici for the first time; he had two amazing frames on show, each built and painted by himself in-house. Marek used to work for French builder TIME, which he says put him off working with carbon fiber for 15 years. Each of the two bikes on show featured a carbon ISP (integrated seatpost) and were silver soldered with Columbus XCR stainless tubes.
This rim brake road bike featured a modified Columbus fork with homemade dropouts bonded in so that the caliper could clear a 30c tire. I looked at the partial flip paint, applied so that the weave of the carbon can be seen below, as well as the polished Chris King headset, with turned spacers to match the top of the headset and the diameter of the nickel plated steel stem. It was built with 10-speed Dura Ace that had a bunch of little dents from use, each neatly filled with silver, as the bike is the builder’s own.
Jacquie Phelan’s Touring Bike
If I saw this bike chained to a lamppost in central London or any other city, I probably wouldn’t look twice at it; or maybe I would, because it’s much rattier than most, and I’m a pervert. Jacquie’s touring bike has clearly seen a lot, and once you start looking at all the little patches and repairs and modifications Charlie Cunningham and Jacquie have made to it over the years, it starts to become something I can get excited about. There are repairs and then repairs to the repairs and then repairs to those repairs. Iterative tweaking that’s taken place over tens of thousands of miles.
I loved the mudguards made from found aluminum road signs and the piece of string running from an aluminum tab bolted to the fork crown, tied to a hose clamp on the downtube, next to a sleeved down tube repair that Charlie must have made at some point. My favorite bit was the modifications made for the rack, with hefty tabs brazed on at the bottom and a fillet brazed top bit tied on with wire, then soldered, then tied with different wire, and then bolted on. Every day, in every way, the rack gets a little sturdier.
I love that all those tweaks and modifications make a super basic rack the best one that works without any preciousness or consideration outside of its functionality. It’s a tweaking that inverters do – the idea and its function are the only sacred things, and any way to reach that idea or function is valid as long as the idea or function remains intact.
Milara Bike
Milara is a small company based in Berlin that has not yet started full production. However, it is dedicated to batch-producing cargo bikes “made for space” in Portugal, with additional accessories made in-house in Berlin. There will be two models available: the normal one and the e-bike version. Both are super utilitarian, 20” wheeled small cargo bikes with a relatively large, sturdy, and removable front cargo rack.
It’s a nice design for a compact and lightweight cargo bike designed for cities. I had the opportunity to try it out a bit at the show but didn’t get to photograph it. The haggard old prototype showed up while I was shooting another bike, so I shot that one instead.
It was stolen a few months back and recently materialized again, fully intact after having presumably been ridden like it was stolen, which feels like a great way to test a bike out in the real world. Frames start at €1750 with full builds coming in at €3000 which isn’t bad for a super utilitarian European-made mini cargo bike.
I like this bike for its simple design and filet-brazed construction, which is novel for a batched cargo bike but is pretty sensible. It’s the sort of bike that I wish more people rode, as it’s a much better transport solution for European cities than a lot of bikes that people do ride.
Briefcase Men and Gaslighting
At Eurobike, there are men with briefcases. Briefcases have no place in modern society, especially not at a bike show. They’re a hangover from a post-war salaryman style that’s no longer relevant in a broadly paperless age. Imagine walking a marathon carrying a briefcase because if you’re grazing the halls at Eurobike with a mission or a purpose, that’s the kind of distance you’ll be walking.
Also, it’s the cycling industry, where there’s absolutely no one to impress, and if you’re trying to impress them with your smart casual office attire, you’re going about it all wrong.
There are a few exceptions, however: Gary Fisher is a very strange fish indeed and was roaming the halls wearing a turtleneck base layer under a patterned shirt with suit trousers and a cowboy hat. He’s an iconic weirdo, so yeah, obviously he has a briefcase, but more to the point – why doesn’t he have a handcuff to go with it? He should have because he lost it on the last day. What’s in the briefcase? I have no idea, but if I had to guess: scrunched-up balls of newspaper to keep the shape, or maybe some gum and a collection of Chinese factory brochures. Who knows? Who cares? It’s a fantastic prop.
Roman of QVIST is another briefcase icon who’s subverted the briefcase paradigm and made it his own with his little briefcase of sample hubs, including a rear with a cutout showing the patented ratchet mechanism QVIST is known for. I take any opportunity I can to take the hub out and spin it slowly, watching the floating element move from one side to the other, precisely engaging half a click on each side. It is a valid and noble briefcase through its embracing of traveling salesperson/Mormon chic, and when I see Roman, I’m glad that the briefcase is with him and that he hasn’t broken character for anyone, at any time.
The inverse of briefcases is gaslighting. This year gaslighting, a highly modern pastime, was at an all-time high, from salespeople claiming wild and irrational status and functionality accolades for their products to a small car with text on the side that read “I’m a bike!”
The brazen and flagrant gaslighting this year indicates that I’m perhaps not the only visitor who doesn’t take Eurobike too seriously and that amid adversity, the cycling industry has initiated a renaissance in surrealism so that it can at least laugh at itself in the way that original gaslighter, Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, did to fine art with his 1929 painting La Trahison des Images. I know what a car is, and I won’t be gaslit about what is and isn’t a car. If it’s got four wheels, a chair, a steering wheel, a gearbox, and a motor, it sure as hell isn’t a bike…
I recognize that that makes quad bikes not bikes, and I stand by my reasoning!
Eurobike 2024 To Be Continued…
Eurobike is EPIC in both its scale and diversity of offerings. This year, the Handmade Area added another dimension that made an otherwise fairly absurd show feel more tangible. As the day came to an end and halls closed for business, cleaners loitered in the wings waiting for booth parties blaring the most Euro music to come to an end.
I’ve grown to love the evenings at Eurobike; they’re a rare chance to catch up with other weirdos who could have been weird at anything but ended up being weird at bikes. This year’s Twotone/Crank Communications dinner was the best one yet, and I’m super grateful to Brian Park from Pinkbike for organizing the Bike People meet-up. Stay tuned for the rest of it tomorrow, featuring the weird, the wonderful, and the downright Dangerholm.