Velofollies has grown from a regionally important Belgian cycling trade show to become the second-biggest in Europe, with more than 300 exhibitors welcoming 40,000 guests to the 2025 edition this past weekend.
Held in Kortrijk, Belgium, Velofollies cuts back on the endless aisles of grey-label rebranded products, indistinguishable ebikes, and OEM gear seen at Eurobike – historically the biggest and most important cycling trade show globally – to focus on consumer-facing products.
This results in a more intimate and fun show for cycling media, distributors, retailers and consumers alike.
This, combined with the accessibility of Kortrijk, the show’s positive vibes, lower-priced booths and optimal timing means that, in my eyes, Velofollies has unseated Eurobike as Europe’s most important trade show – a view shared by many I spoke to at this year’s event.
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Timing and attendees are key
Velofollies’ early season timing is key to its appeal.
Eurobike was traditionally held in the run-up to the last weekend of August. With the summer season winding down, this worked for brands because it landed when orders and marketing budgets were planned for the subsequent year.
The show rescheduled to mid-July in 2018 – an unpopular move because it landed slap-bang in the middle of the summer selling season and the Tour de France, causing logistical headaches for many brands, shops and media staff.
Eurobike will run even earlier this year, taking place from 25 to 29 June – an improvement but still a busy time when resources are likely to be stretched.
Velofollies takes place in January, when little else is happening in the cycling world and all in attendance can make plans for the year ahead.
Shimano’s marketing manager for road products, Alexa Cunningham, highlights the timing of Velofollies as crucial to its success: “People have been sitting on indoor trainers for three months, but this is a place you can see the latest products.”
She says this contributes to a more optimistic feeling at the show, attracting a higher calibre of exhibitors keen to show off their wares.
Although the potential audience at Eurobike is enormous, much of its focus is on the B2B side of the industry, with entire halls dedicated to vast OEM booths for manufacturers you've never heard of – and never will.
Although Velofollies plays an important role in bringing brands, distributors and retailers together, the focus on B2C products makes for a better consumer experience – and an easier show to justify attending when brands have greater opportunities to speak to the people who ride and buy their products.
Cunningham’s assessment of what this means for the show was frank: “Velofollies is the biggest and best consumer show kick-off in Europe for the year ahead.”
Lower costs, greater impact
Brands are, understandably, reluctant to share how much they spend attending trade shows.
Although I’ve never been given a firm answer, it’s rumoured that a large stand at Eurobike can set a brand back many hundreds of thousands of euros. Again, nobody would share exact figures, but Velofollies is said to be significantly more affordable.
Outside of the show, compared to Frankfurt, everyone I spoke to agreed lower costs for hotels, meals and travel in Kortrijk make Velofollies far more appealing than Eurobike, which is held in Frankfurt.
From my brief visit, I can confirm that Kortrijk is a nice town with good restaurants, it’s easy to navigate, and BikeRadar’s expenses budget certainly appreciated the significantly cheaper hotels.
I attended as a solo reporter but that difference will be even more important for medium and large brands.
In an industry hardly awash with cash, reducing the costs of feeding and watering a team of several dozen reps to staff a large booth could easily sway a brand into attending Velofollies over Eurobike.
Lower costs and the chance to speak directly to consumers in the Benelux region – a key market for the brand – swayed Basso into attending Velofollies over Eurobike.
In 2024, the cash the brand would have spent attending Eurobike was then spent running events across Germany, providing a more tangible relationship with new and existing customers, explained chief marketing officer, Leonardo Basso.
Logistics and costs aside, the show is appealing for obvious reasons to brands based in the Benelux region.
Laurien Celis, marketing manager for Belgian brand Ridley, which launched its new Noah Fast at Velofollies, described Velofollies 2025 as “one for the history books”, adding that the show’s access to the Belgian market “is incredibly important to us, even as we continue to achieve year-on-year international growth.”
Vibe check
It's not just a better show for journalists and brands than Eurobike, bike nerds are better served by a trip to Belgium, too.
Less tangible, but essential, is the far improved vibe at Velofollies.
Having fewer B2B brands lends the show a far more intimate, focused, energised and accessible feel from the off.
The makeup of the crowd is also different. Eurobike generally opens with three industry-only days, while Velofollies actively chose not to exclude the consumer market from any day of the show.
Speaking to trade publication Bike Europe last year, head organiser Pieter Desmet explained that because the show has a very wide range of exhibitors, many of them consumer-oriented, it didn’t make sense to run trade-only days.
“On Sunday evening there is the traditional closing, and then everyone goes home satisfied. If you added a professional day on Monday, that could be an anticlimax”, he added.
This mixed crowd gives the show a buzzier feel – it was great to see the full gamut of cyclists represented, with kids grabbing selfies with the various off-season pros in attendance and committed SPD sandal-toting nerds chewing the ears off brand reps.
Although unofficial parties often take place in the expansive messe halles, Eurobike generally shuts at 6pm sharp. Velofollies encourages a typically Belgian booze-up, staying open until 8pm on the Friday, and offers a fun timetable of engaging talks throughout the day.
My enthusiasm for the show is a sentiment shared by my contemporaries.
In a round-up from last year’s show, Dave Everret of Velo described Velofollies as “quite possibly my favourite bike show of the year” adding that he’d be back for 2025 (although I wasn’t fortunate enough to share a beer with affable Dave ).
What’s in store for 2026?
Speaking at the end of the show, press officer Tony de Clerq told me that, after a sell-out 2025, Velofollies is enjoying “strong bookings” for 2026, including many repeat bookings.
De Clerq can certainly count BikeRadar among his repeating bookings – as our unofficial chief trade show correspondent, I’ll be lining up a crack team of tech sleuths and whizzing us through the Chunnel en masse in the content bus to what is now my favourite show. I’m already excited for the waffles.
