SCHWÄBISCH GMÜND, Germany (BRAIN)—Organizers of the European Handmade Bicycle Exhibition will bring back the show next year due to requests from local and regional frame builders. The 2011 show was canceled weeks before its scheduled May 20 start date because of low registration numbers.
“During the last weeks and months we’ve received many messages from people who expressed their regret about the EHBE’s abscence in 2011, and after visiting one or two of the other spring shows who catered for ‘handmade’ this year, many frame builders expressed the wish for EHBE to return for 2012,” organizer Indra Sarkar said in a press release.
“The public is keen to rediscover the small-scale, custom and craft-based manufacturing sectors, while locally-produced goods are again fashionable as well as being on the wider political agenda.”
Next year’s show will take place March 31 through April 1, 2012 at the same location in Schwäbisch Gmünd, which is about 50 miles east of Stuttgart.
Sarkar started the event with business partner Ingo Brandtl in 2009 with the goal of bringing custom made frames and bikes to the awareness of the broader cycling public.
It was the first show of its kind in Europe and saw early success. It sold out in the first year and attracted 90 exhibitors in its second year including 12 U.S. brands and18 from the U.K.
But, registration dropped in 2011 due to a difference in opinion among framebuilders about how professional the show should be including the admissions criteria and whether the small town of Schwäbisch Gmünd was the right place to hold it.
The 2012 show will return similar to how it was in 2010 with visitors given the opportunity to meet a variety of frame builders in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.
(PHOTO courtesy of EHBE. Builder brazing a Tommasini bike).
