NOTICE: We're not going anymore, but other people are still welcome to go along. Have Fun!

Eurobike is one of the two major bicycle exhibitions / trade fairs in the world (the other one being Interbike in Las Vegas). It is just on the other side of Bodensee (Lake Constance) in Friedrichshafen and will be open to the general public for just one day, Saturday September 5th. If you want to drool over thousands of beautiful bicycles and millions of components then you should not miss this. We went last year and had a lot of fun, here is our photo album of the best things we saw, which included this pretty Wilier perched on a rotating platform. The event is huge, and there is something for every kind of bike enthusiast.



Transportation: When we went last year, we travelled there and back from Lausanne in the same day (5 hours each way), but this was a bit extreme, and this year we may try to stay somewhere a bit closer. From Zurich main train station, it would be between 2.5 and 3 hours including the boat across Bodensee, check the SBB and this page on the Eurobike website for more info. The public transport was not overly crowded, and was well organized (plenty of shuttle buses doing the short run from the port to the exhibition hall). It appears that an alternative to the train/boat option is to take a free shuttle bus direct from Zurich airport, which takes about 2 hours, and will leave at 8:00 and 9:00 on Saturday. The free bus tickets must be reserved online, see here.
It looked like there were long lines of cars waiting to get into parking lots that were not all that close to the venue when we arrived, but driving would be another option if you must do so.

Tickets: It costs just 13 euros to get in. You can buy your tickets online here, which we did last year, and that saved some time by not having to queue up for them in the morning. Kids tickets are less, but they can't be bought online.

Crowds: We were expecting the place to be nuts, but it really wasn't too bad. Apparently, some of the trade days in the preceding week are much busier than the public day. Part of the reason why it is not too crowded is the size of the event - it was way bigger than we had imagined. There are at least 12 massive aircraft-hanger sized buildings full of displays (it is on an airfield where many Zeppelin airships were built), plus there is more stuff outside in between the hangers. There is no way you could see it all in one day, so make sure you have a strategy if there are certain manufacturers that you want to see.

Purchasing: None of the parts on display are for sale, which is good, otherwise I might spend more than I should. However, because this is the last day of the event, some of the smaller manufacturers do sell off some of their display items at the end of the day - I was offered some stems for a cheap price at the end of the day, and I saw many people walking around with a frame by the end of the day, although I expect that these were people who were already connected to the manufacturers in some way.

Timing: It is open from 9am to 6pm on the public day. Because we came in from Lausanne, we didn't get there too early, maybe around 10:30am, but this was no problem using public transport, but it may have been a bad idea if we had used a car. We left around 5pm, but some of the manufacturers had started to take down their displays by 4pm, so make sure that you see anything that you really want to see earlier in the day.

At the last minute, we arranged to meet up with some other EF'ers for lunch at the event last year. This year, we're a bit more forward-planning and have posted this official event thread. If there is anyone who would like to hang out with us for the day, or part of it, then we can try to organize the details in the thread below. I'll add more info about our plans to the first post below once they are more complete.

---

RSVP'd No: 2

• hillseeker - Sorry, wish we could join you! We're going out of town this weekend. Enjoy!
• ChrisW - Lack of interest caused me to cancel this one.