On the second day of the thirtieth edition of FSA Bike Festival Riva del Garda the awards ceremony was held Bike Festival Awardone of the innovations introduced thanks to the new management of the event which passed into the hands of Garda Dolomiti – Azienda per il Turismo SpA, which saw candidates over 40 bike models in the four categories foreseen by the regulation: mountain bikes in both the front and full suspension versions, eMTB and gravel bikes also in the electric version.
«An initiative that we wanted to include within the Festival to reward the commitment of exhibiting companies in the development of new proposals – he underlined Oskar SchwazerGeneral Manager of Garda Trentino – and judging by the response of the companies, we believe that it is a topic to be developed even further in the near future”.
The winners of the Bike Festival Award
The winner in the hardtail category was the group’s Lurra 1 model from Liv Giant while among the full suspension mountain bikes the winner was Specialized with its S-Works Epic 8 model. Among pedal-assisted mountain bikes, the ECC6 by Gas Gas.
Finally, the Impulso RC model won in the gravel category whites.
The jury of the Bike Festival Award 2024 was chaired by Uli Stanciu, the historic director of Bike Magazine who in the mid-90s had the idea of creating a festival in Riva del Garda with the possibility of trying and testing the bikes on display . From that brilliant intuition the thirty-year history of Bike Festival was born.
«Starting from the original idea of the Bike Festival to offer an extraordinary experience where you can test bikes in a splendid location like Riva del Garda, with the establishment of the award a further step forward has been taken – he commented Uli Stanciu – we have seen and tried products with sophisticated technology and attractive designs. Naturally, after taking the first step, the Bike Festival Award will be able to grow further, also thanks to the future contribution of the members of the jury.”
Alongside Uli Stanciu, an international jury composed of the technical director of the Kiska agency Michael Rieder, the industrial designer Giampaolo Allocco, the mobility expert Hannes Neupert, the graveller Alessandro Grisotto, the journalist Sissi Pärsch, the sports designer Jonny Moletta and by YouTuber and content creator Andrea Ziliani.
The representatives of the four winning companies received on the main stage the special trophy established by FSA Bike Festival Riva del Garda and which features the motto “Rocks On Fire”, as the common thread of all the initiatives linked to the thirtieth edition of the expo dedicated to bikes off-road. They collected the trophy Marta Villa Of Giant Italy, Ermanno Leonardi Of Specialized Italy, Mike Hiendlmayer Of GasGas and Annalisa Togni of whites.
