Record Breaking EICMA Moto & Bici

MILAN, Italy - The 65th edition of the EICMA International Motorcycle and Bicycle show, held November 2 - 11, drew a record breaking crowd of over 500,000 visitors. The numbers could have been even bigger if the Milan traffic police had not been forced to close the access road to the new Fiera Milano on Friday and Saturday due to road traffic problems.

The traffic problems experienced during this year’s EICMA have not yet been settled. Show Director Costantino Ruggiero explained: “I’d like the city of Milan to realize just what our show means to the city, but I get the feeling that won’t happen. The Milan transport authority set difficult conditions for us to reach an agreement that would have helped ease the problems of the last few days of this year’s show.” Despite all that, EICMA Director Ruggiero also commented: “Our anger can’t hide the satisfaction with the success of the show, including the velodrome, which proved to be a real crowd puller. As well as 500,000 visitors, we also had 45,000 trade visitors in the first two days and over 2,000 journalists visiting the show.”

Regarding the products on show at this year’s EICMA, in the bicycle halls 5 and 7 in particular there was a striking number of exhibitors displaying pedelecs and e-Bikes. They all intend to profit from the new electric trend that is also expected to emerge in Italy. Along with the e-Bikes, the number of frame makers showing titanium frames also stood out. Whether this material is likely to take over from carbon is questionable, as lots of Italian frame makers are real specialists.

At EICMA Moto the environmental trend among the big brands was striking. Almost all of them are incorporating environmentally-friendly engines in their line-ups. Piaggio is perhaps the best example of this new trend. The biggest Powered Two-Wheeler maker in Italy (and Europe) launched the HvS Hybrid power plant: a regular combustion engine combined with an electric motor. In 2008 the HvS power plant will be used on Piaggio’s successful three-wheeler MP3 and later also on lots of other models. Piaggio is not the only PTW maker concentrating on hybrid engines; Honda and Yamaha also have similar technologies to be incorporated in future models, while other PTW makers including SYM showed all-electric scooters.

For next year EICMA has already decided on the dates of EICMA Moto which will be held November 4 - 9, 2008. At the same dates the Velodrome track racing will take place because, as EICMA puts it: “It was a vital part on the overall success of EICMA 2007.”

More on EICMA Bici & Moto in Bike Europe’s December edition.