Some might call a temporary settlement of sixty thousand people in which cars have no place at all a nirvana. The organisers call this overnight town Eurobike.

A conurbation full to bursting with shiny new stuff: glossy plastic widgets; lurid lycra clothing; an uncanny diversity of lights, locks, wheels, gloves, tyres, cogs and – increasingly – motors. Umpteen clever little engineered objects whose function is sometimes utterly obscure until someone explains it. And, given how fiercely price-competitive a business bikes are, seemingly a thousand me-too bike brands with little to distinguish or remember them by, their representatives snapping like hungry pirañas over new custom from milling trade buyers.

You know when you go into a posh specialist bike shop, the kind that feels more like a high-end clothing retailer, with Lots of Space™ to ensure you have no problem dancing freely around the immaculate art-exhibit velocipides; carpets and shelves so pristine you wonder if they actually keep any oil on the premises; and aspirationally fit snd well-groomed assistants to give the rest of us something to aspire to?

Well all those people, seemingly every last one of them, is here. Floating on heaving seas of more ordinary mortals lustfully gazing at all that glitters, and engaged in serious talk over pricing. At the money-no-object end there are now wireless shift derailleurs on offer from the market leader, Shimano.

Huddles of earnest Chinese and Taiwanese on what one assumes is their most sought-after annual jolly from the factory, with between them just one queued-for translator (not to belittle anyone – I suspect the big shows in the far east are a precise mirror of this situation, where few people on the European stands speak fluent Mandarin).

The gossip is clear that a recent high water mark of cycling as a business has passed, though there are said to be signs of a modest recovery. Major cycling brands missing this year or with a shrunken presence included Campagnolo, Canyon, DT Swiss, Merida, PON, Scott, Specialized, SRAM and ZEG. The tide of industry and consumer attendance has also receded from its peak.

Nevertheless, the fifteen hundred vendors, while hailing from almost every corner of the globe were as you’d expect heavily European for the the high end consumer brands, and far eastern for the bits that make them up. There were clearly co-ordinated clusters of exhibitors from a number of areas including Portugal’s bike valley, eastern Europe and Vietnam. One suspects this may become even more of a trend with the increasing global use of tariffs.

Perhaps the heyday of what was once the bike maker to the world is long gone, but it was sad to see so few British concerns. Convoy’s powered e-trailer for sure, and Intradrive’s slick new gearbox-motor, but I didn’t see Pashley, Brompton or any others.

The momentum in Europe, as in the UK market, is clearly in EPACs, though home e-bike turnover seriously lags many north European countries. Their sales are rising both numerically and as a proportion – they just became the majority in Germany – and also, due to their considerably higher average selling price  dominating in value, born largely of ever more folks realising these admirable contraptions can help one commute faster, get fit, and pay for itself.

Perhaps all this need not trouble light mobility manufacturers as much as it does the boardroom titans of the big six global bike makers (Trek, Specialized, Merida, Accell, Dorel and the aptly giant, Giant) who have been to various degrees having to cut costs. We innovators are starting at a much lower base from which, though never anything but tough, things can surely only get better.

One other major trend, which surely cannot fail to get the attention of – and I’d wager further substantial future investment from – these behemoths is the growth of everything in the space not occupied by traditional leg-powered cycling. Raising consternation from cycling traditionalists for sure, but we knew this ever-larger range of bigger-than-bike things was on the way.

Hence it was not a complete surprise that the organisers announced their decision to split off a new, colocated and parallel exhibition called Mobifuture to corral all that.

So here’s an open question for British light vehicle makers, especially the smaller and newer amongst us: would we, could we benefit from collaborating to present a collective British presence next time?

LiMA is actively considering this, and talking to Mobifuture’s curators. Let us know what you think.

©Brendan Hill 2025