Cycle Show and London eBike Festival to merge at Alexandra Palace
The Cycle Show will merge with the London e-Bike Festival for a refreshed show launching April 16th to 18th at Alexandra Palace.
The Immediate Media-owned events are to be found side by side for the first time, with the Coronavirus postponing the inaugural London e-Bike Festival, originally set to have taken place in Battersea Park.
Having spent the past nine years up at Birmingham’s NEC, the departure is a marked change for the Cycle Show too, which bumps forward into spring.
The event duo will now occupy over 11,000 square metres of exhibition space and branch out into 196 acres of Alexandra Palace’s parkland, which has before now hosted Red Bull’s Empire of Dirt, the Rapha Supercross and was also home to a cycling exhibition in the early 1990s.
Director of the event, Nicola Meadows, said: “The launch of London e-Bike Festival and the 2020 edition of The Cycle Show were both cancelled due to Covid-19, however, the break in the event calendar has given us an opportunity to reimagine the events to deliver an incredibly exciting new format utilising the excellent outdoor space offered by Alexandra Palace, as well as providing the perfect environment to showcase the best brands in the industry.”
The show format will now dedicate space exclusively for electric bikes, as well as triathlon, adding an outdoor festival based around a demo village on the hills surrounding the venue. The triathlon offering will be backed by 220 Triathlon.
It is said that the venue will offer up around four miles of tarmac and mountain bike test tracks, improving significantly on the former short test track proposed at Battersea.
The show organisers will be enlisting the MTB-specialist help of Si Paton and Kye Forte to create a dedicated off-road circuit utilising the woodland single track and steep descents, alongside a tarmac commuter track on the hill side.
Meadows continued: “Cycling has seen one of its biggest-ever boom times during recent months and the London e-Bike Festival and The Cycle Show are perfectly timed and located to engage a whole new audience of enthusiastic cyclists, along with delivering an exhilarating event for those with a long-held passion for the sport. We’re looking forward to delivering a family-friendly festival of cycling against the backdrop of one of the most stunning panoramic views of the capital’s skyline.”
Exhibitors already confirmed to attend include Shimano Steps, Bosch e-Bike Systems, Ridgeback, Trek, Specialized, Canyon, Ribble, Raleigh, Lapierre, Haibike, Cannondale, Riese & Muller, VanMoof and GoCycle amongst others.
