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DAHON at Eurobike

DAHON at Eurobike

Show roundup from Friedrichshafen

Last week DAHON attended what many consider to be the event of the bicycle business, the world’s largest bicycle show – Eurobike. Taking place in Friedrichshafen by the beautiful Lake Konstanz in Germany, this year’s show saw a record number of visitors as 1,280+ brands exhibited to over 45,000 attendees and 1,800+ members of the press.

On show for this huge crowd were DAHON’s 2015 models, including our latest and greatest technology, brand new frames and upgrades on old favourites. With its innovative rear-wheel fold and asymmetrical top tube, the Curl makes for an ultra-compact folder that opens up into a head turning, urban ride. Also new to the fleet is the Clinch, a full sized, BMX style bike that utilizes LockJaw technology and super light carbon 451 wheels. With the e-bike market booming, DAHON has also added the TranzX powered Ciao Electric to the line-up. Other highlights of the collection include the 3 speed edition of our award winning EEZZ, Flatpak technology that enables full sized bikes to flatten along a single plane for next level convenience in storage and transportation, the vertical folding 20″ Qix and many more.

Eurobike also set the stage for DAHON to honour our Green Award winners. We set aside a fund of over 10,000 Euros last year to be awarded to the most worthy individual or organization who has made an outstanding contribution to environmentally friendly mobility. With a wealth of impressive projects and nominations to choose from, let us first congratulate the runners-up who received a DAHON bike each. The GBS Huizingen primary school from Breesel was successful with a project which convincingly demonstrated new “multi-modal mobility”. The headmaster of the school, which is located near a railway station, had the idea of acquiring 15 folding bikes which children can use for getting to and from school as well as in their free time. Also awarded was the “ESCape on a cycling bus!” project, which involved two schools in the Brussels area who use a “bicycle bus” – in other words an accompanied group of cyclists with set pick-up points and departure times – aimed at ensuring children have a safe, environmentally friendly and healthy school run.

For the grand prize it was too close to call, so our judges split the prize money awarding $7,000 each to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and AGFS of Germany. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is one of America’s oldest and most respected bicycle advocacy groups, whose impact in improving bicycle infrastructure has been felt not just in the Bay Area but across the USA. AGFS (The Association for Pedestrian and Bicycle-friendly Cities, Townships and Districts in North Rhine Westphalia) lobbies for and promotes better active short-trip mobility (known as “Nahmobilität” in German). As well as producing high quality educational and promotional materials to promote green mobility, they also work very closely with local government to directly influence and support policies which have led to one of the best cycling rates in the country. DAHON founder and CEO Dr. David HON commented,  “We are really pleased that our initiative has allowed us, as a responsible and environmentally aware company, to do our bit to change mobility behaviour.” Our warmest congratulations once more to our winners, and thanks to all the entrants doing outstanding work for the good of the environment around the globe.

It was also during Eurobike that we introduced our DAHON Explorers, a group of active individuals what embody the spirit of DAHON and all the possibilities of a folding bike. We sent out the call for applications a few weeks ago and received a phenomenal response. With the first batch of Explorers now picked, soon they will be feeding back their folding adventures in multimedia. Get following DAHON on instagram to keep up with the live feed.