Phil Latz has a few Eurobikes under his belt. His first was in 2000!
Eurobike is the world’s largest and most important bicycle trade show. July 2024 saw the third edition of Eurobike to be held at its new home in Frankfurt.
I’ve been attending Eurobike most years since about the year 2000. Until 2022 it was held in the much prettier but smaller town of Friedrichshafen. The show simply outgrew both the town and the old showgrounds venue, which ‘only’ had 100,000 square metres of available space. Frankfurt has a much larger showgrounds with room for future Eurobike growth, plus it’s a major international airport hub and has enough accommodation to host such a big event.
This year there were 35,080 trade visitors from around the world, plus 33,090 public visitors. Both of these numbers were up slightly on last year. They came to see over 1,800 exhibits, which ranged from small booths up to massive displays of 1,000 square meters in size. The total show covered 150,000 square metres of indoor and outdoor exhibit space, plus several test tracks.
I will confess that I am not a product expert, and with so many booths, I’m sure there were some hot new MTB products that I missed, but here’s an overview of a dozen new products either solely MTB designed or with MTB versions, that I think will have an impact over the coming years. As you will see, there’s a strong e-drivetrain emphasis, because that’s the area where most of the new product development is occurring.
No New Bosch?
There was massive investment into new e-bike drive systems including e-MTB’s on show at Eurobike, from a wide range of large companies. Despite all of this competition, Bosch are still the market leaders by a large margin. Along with at least 100 other members of the media, I arrived in Frankfurt a day early to attend the annual Bosch launch I expected to see some new Bosch products, but there were none in terms of hardware.
Instead, the launch placed heavy emphasis on upgrades to their Smart System and their Flow App. Bosch eBike Systems Global CEO Claus Fleischer told the assembled media that they now have over one million subscribers to the app.
Two of the biggest new features were range prediction and range control. These use AI to analyse the elevation profile, assistance mode and your usual riding style to manage the battery and power output to get you to your selected destination before the battery goes flat. In fact, you can also preselect the amount of charge you want to have left when you get there.
There’s also a new Eco+ mode that only kicks in when starting, accelerating or riding uphill. The cut in level for this is also customisable by the rider.
Perhaps the biggest news was the announcement that Bosch and its biggest competitor, Shimano have agreed to collaborate. Initially this will be in relation to Nexus Di2 and Cues Di2, which will become Bosch Smart System compatible, with more groupsets to follow.
They also announced a collaboration with TRP with their 12 speed EASI A12 derailleur that allows automatic shifting based upon cadence, similar to SRAM’s new ASX Transmission.
More Air, Less Effort
Schwalbe’s new “Clik Valve” was one of the smallest new products launched at Eurobike this year, but possibly the one that will sell in greatest numbers if it’s commercially successful.
After decades of virtually no change to the design of Schrader and presta bicycle valves, the click valve uses a spring loaded ring mechanism to create a better seal between the valve and the pump. It can screw into existing valves. Meanwhile existing pumps can use the new system through use of an adaptor.
Schwalbe says the benefits are allowing 50% more airflow and no pressure loss. The click valve won a Eurobike design award.
New Drive System Ideal for MTB’s
You might not have heard of ZF, but you will have heard of the car companies for with they’ve been making transmissions and other parts for over a century, including Mercedes Benz.
ZF has over 160,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of over A$70 billion, so when they quietly entered the e-bike drivetrain market in 2020 with a fairly basic product mainly aimed at the cargo bike market, you knew that they’d be playing the long game, with more products to come.
This year they launched their new Centrix drive unit. This photo shows a cut-away sample MTB frame so you can see the controller that connects the internal down tube battery to the motor.
The Centrix can be software controlled to deliver either 75 or 90 nm (newton metres) of torque. It uses a ‘wave gear’ system to reduce the motor speed by a ratio of 50 to 1. This is a far higher reduction ratio than other brands offer, which allows the motor to spin faster for any given bicycle speed. The motor weighs 2.5 kg.
The Centrix has been spec’d by several bicycle brands across France, Germany and Switzerland.
I test road a bike with the ZF drive. It wasn’t as smooth and quiet as I expected, but still acceptable and the torque was both strong and almost instantaneous.
TQ Expands
How light can a robust, practical e-MTB get? This Rotwild RX275 was hanging up from a set of scales on the TQ stand. Just in case you can’t read the small read-out on the scales, it weighed in at 12.75 kg.
I first saw TQ two years ago when they first launched at Eurobike. Then they had an exclusive 12 month agreement to only supply Trek bikes. But two years later they’re now spec’d on 14 high end bike brands including Scott and BMC.
A team member on their stand said that they were in discussions with several more manufacturers. Meanwhile they appear to now be just the first in a growing “single axle compact e-drive” category, because at least three other brands displaying their own versions including ZF that I’ve already included in this article.
Plastic Bicycle Tubes
The weight of this tiny product had to be felt to be truly appreciated – 46 grams for the mountain bike inner tube to the left of this photo and not too much more for the puncture resistant version on the right. If all of the claims made below prove to be true in real world use, then this tiny product could be one of the biggest new developments coming from this year’s Eurobike.
Of course, many MTB’s now run tubeless tyres, but for a super light weight ‘get me home’ spare tube, the Aeron could find a market, along with riders who prefer a lightweight tyre and tube combination.
Logan van Bokel, is Global PR Manager for RTI Sports, a German company founded by Franc Arnold over 20 years ago. The company is best known for its Ergon range, that includes anatomic handlebar grips, saddles and other products, but at this year’s Eurobike they were highlighting their new range of inner tubes.
Logan explained that they’re made from TPU which stands for thermoplastic polyurethane – in other words, plastic.
“Aeron is a brand new brand, completely dedicated to TPU inner tubes,” he said. “We have road, mountain bike, gravel, with three versions in each. Our superlight race is our lightest most compact. Extralight protect is more middle of the road and ultraprotect is our strongest, most durable tube. It’s about the weight of a conventional tube but six times more puncture resistant.
“The TPU engineering is the secret. Our manufacturing partner in Europe also makes tennis racket strings out of TPU, parts for your mobile phone…
“The air retention is very strong. Our extra light protect will be 5x to 10x better than a latex tube (of similar weight) and similar to what a well-made butyl tube can do.
“These are prototypes, but our production tube valves will also be TPU.”
These tubes won’t be cheap, at €20 to €25 each, (A$31 to $39).
DJI Enters the E-MTB Market
Without doubt the “hottest” new product in the minds of the media and many attendees at Eurobike this year was this Amflow mountain bike. Not so much the bike, which was really just a platform for the Avinox drive system. This was the first public launch of DJI into the bicycle industry as a designer and manufacturer of e-MTB drive systems.
If you haven’t heard of DJI, the company was founded in China in 2006 and is probably the best known high tech drone manufacturer in the world. The multibillion dollar company has clearly decided to invest heavily in the bike industry.
“We’ve been keeping it secret until we launched here,” said Olivier Monbon, Senior Communications Manager for DJI. “It’s not just a motor or battery, it’s a complete system. The motor is 2.52 kg and you can get 105 Nm of torque. We make it in house.”
“We have expertise with drones, cameras, stabilisation. We have mini drones that fit in the palm of your hand but can fly 10km away from you while you still have control.
“We’ve proved our batteries and brushless motors through billions of kilometres of drone flights. We’ve made the flight control systems feel like an extension of your body.
“All this experience, we want to apply to the bike industry, starting with the mountain bike. Why? Because we’re a tech brand for the outdoors.
“Of course, DJI is open to work with all the bike manufacturers. We’ve made a bike controller that has 42 sensors in the rear wheel. It has a gyroscope that knows if you’re riding up or down. It’s very smooth and intuitive.
“We’ve been working on the bike project for 3 ½ years. It’s a key project for DJI. It’s not just a little side project.
“Germany, UK and Australia will be our three priority markets to launch our products,” he concluded.
DJI’s booth was packed the entire show. They only had two test bikes available and this queue, which was often even longer, represented at least a two hour wait to test ride one of the bikes.
I think that many of those in the queue worked for manufacturers of other drive systems, keen to find out what their newest competitor was offering.
Combined Motor Gearbox Systems Gain Traction
One of the products getting most attention at Eurobike was the Pinion motor gearbox unit. Pinion has been making mid-mounted internal gearboxes for quite a few years but now they’ve added electric drive motors into a single unit.
It comes in nine and 12 speed options and has already been spec’d on a wide range of new bikes. I test rode the nine speed version. It changed gears easily and had plenty of torque, but was not quite as quiet or smooth as I’d expected, in particular for one gear change about half way through the range. As yet, Pinion do not have an Australian service centre. Pinion say that the only maintenance will be to change the oil once per year or 10,000 kilometres, whichever comes first.
Pinion is owned by Canadian multinational Bombardier Recreational Products and was founded and still run by two former Porsche engineers.
Shimano Broadens Range
Shimano have enjoyed good success with their EP8 and EP6 drive systems for mountain biking. Now they’ve added to their ebike drive range with the E 5100 mountain bike version and EP 5 (pictured) all round version drive units that are lower priced models.
Shimano drive systems feature pre-shift, so they can change gears when the bike is stopped. For 2024 they’ve also upgraded control software for their drive units.
Hope Expands Product Range
UK based manufacturer Hope has built its reputation as a manufacturer of high end MTB products. At Eurobike they had at least two new additions to their lineup.
Hope launched a carbon version of their EVO cranks. They had a series of four samples showing the various stages of production with the first and second last pictured here. The core of the crank could easily be snapped with your hands without the carbon fibre that is then hand cut and wrapped around it, but the team member on their stand said that they’ve found it’s far better to have this core rather than just an air void as some other brands have.
The EVO carbon cranks will come in three length options and will weigh 422 grams without a chainring.
Hope were also launching a new range of machined alloy thru axles in anodised colour options.
Aeroe Adds Front Spiker Rack
Aeroe are a New Zealand based company that have already built global distribution for their products, with the best known until now being their Spider rear rack for full suspension MTB’s.
At Eurobike they launched this new Spider front rack that co-founder Mike Maguire said is designed to carry any brand of pannier bag or can take a cradle for a drybag. Can can carry up to 15 kg and will retail for about A$210.
Minimalist Santa Cruz eMTB
Santa Cruz were certainly not one of the early movers, when it came to MTB brands adding e-bikes to their lineup. The purist high end brand was wary of being associated with clunky, bulky looking early models released by other manufacturers.
But this Santa Cruz Heckler SL shows how unobtrusive e-drive systems can now be. It uses a Fazua Ride 60 drive system with a 430 watt hour internal battery plus drive system all concealed within the frame. This model weighs 18.9 kg
SRAM Brose Partnership
SRAM have come late to the eMTB drive system race and are hoping to catch up through their collaboration with Brose.
This GasGas ECC6 bike features the SRAM Eagle drive unit that features automatic shifting to keep rider cadence constant.
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