22,000 visitors at the Bike Days despite the capricious weather

The eleventh edition of Bike Days in Solothurn is complete with 22'000 visitors. The record number of exhibitors at the bike expo showcased a wide range of new products and trends, reflecting the current mood of development and growth in the bike industry.

Bike Days 2019 Lucas Huppert by Michael Suter

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The Bike Days 2019 are already history. 22,000 visitors came together at the weekend for the annual bike wedding and presented Solothurn with the eleventh edition - a welcome trophy in the collection of the "Öufi city". "We are very satisfied with the "öuften" edition. The fact that visitor interest was so high and the atmosphere so cheerful despite the capricious weather with rain, sun and wind underlines the importance of the Swiss Bicycle Festival. This is a success for the bike industry and for us as organizers," said a delighted Erwin Flury, President of the OC. The event went off without any noteworthy adverse events. The program could be carried out as planned. Only the MTB Dirtjump Contest was postponed in accordance with the weather forecast and the Best Trick Contest was canceled due to a thunderstorm.

Schurter and Courtney won in the dirt

The race course in the Schanzengraben presented itself with a lot of dirt and mud due to the rain of the previous days. Nino Schurter, multiple world champion and athlete of the year, took his eighth victory in Solothurn this year in the Proffix Swiss Bike Cup cross-country race. He rode a tactical race in which he took the lead from the Swiss champion and overall leader, Mathias Flückiger, in the final sprint and pushed him into second place. Lars Forster, who won gold together with Schurter in the Cape Epic in March and is the reigning European champion, finished third despite a defect. In the women's race, the Swiss favorite to win was beaten by her rival from the USA: Jolanda Neff, the marathon and cross-country world champion, ended up in second place behind Kate Courtney after a tough race. The winner from overseas thus celebrated her first victory on European soil this year. Third place went to Ramona Forchini, the current leader of the PROFFIX Swiss Bike Cup.

Neff's bike auctioned off for #pumpforpeace

Jolanda Neff not only pedaled her bike at the Bike Days, but also did her bit for a good cause: The Trek bike that the marathon and cross-country world champion used for her race was auctioned off on ricardo.ch for the starting amount of 1 Swiss franc. It reached the maximum bid of 6,502 Swiss francs. The handover will take place at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Lenzerheide. Until then, the bike will hopefully help Neff to more podium places. All of the proceeds from the auction will go to #pumpforpeace, a Velosolution initiative that makes biking accessible to children and young people in disadvantaged areas around the world by building pump tracks and providing local support.

Rogatkin and Dandois win the freestyle contests

The freestyle contests MTB Dirtjump and BMX Flatland enchanted the audience with acrobatics and style as well as athletic performance. With several "bangers", as the judges of the MTB Dirtjump Contest call outstanding tricks, the American Rogatkin took victory for the third time in Solothurn. In his winning run, he performed a "Cash Roll Seat Grab" and a "Cork 720 no hand". The second-placed Englishman, Tom Isted, was only narrowly beaten. He performed an impressive flip whip from the drop, which he did not land perfectly, however, and failed to land the next one

He didn't quite manage the "Cork 720" on the next jump, resulting in a "Flip Tuck". Spaniard Alejandro Bonafe flew to third place. 18-year-old Lucas Huppert from Niederweningen would have had a very good chance of making the podium with his trick repertoire. However, as he lost his momentum on the take-off during his top run, he was unable to perform another "banger" as planned and instead only showed a "360", which earned him 13th place.

In his two-and-a-half minute run in the BMX Flatland final, Frenchman Matthias Dandois showed a very fluid run with a "front yard half packer combo" in the best trick. This earned him a narrow but clear first place ahead of the Czech, Dominik Nekolny. Alexandre Jumelin from France earned third place with very original and technical tricks.

Play, sport, bike expo

This year's Bike Days set a new record at the Velo-Expo: with 135 exhibitors and 340 brands, Switzerland's largest bike expo grew by 10 percent compared to the previous year. Trend topics included e-bikes and e-mountain bikes, gravel bikes, cycle tours and tourism offers. The current development and growth mood in the bike industry was comprehensively reflected at Velo-Expo.

The range of participants in the three-day bike program for all active people was almost endless: test bikes and test tracks, Famigros running bike races for children from the age of 2, various pump track races with attractive prizes and prize money, slow races, trial shows and workshops, the Springride bike parade, service courses by SportXX, e-mountain bike riding technique courses, tours and rides and the Bike Night for night owls.

The next Bike Days will take place again in Solothurn from May 8 to 10, 2020.

www.bikedays.ch

Source: Press release