A Dozen Highlights from Bike Festival Riva del Garda 2024

Bike Festival Riva is a nearly week-long Euro-centric bike show located at the north end of Lago di Garda, which I’m told is Italian for Lake Garda. Getting up to Riva requires a convoluted series of planes, trains, and buses—unless you drive there. If only I were that wise.

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Rolling in after two fantastic days spent decompressing in Verona, a small city at the foot of the Italian Alps, day one of the bike festival was wet. Like really wet. Dodging puddles and crazed children with eMTBs with output measurable in horsepower, I went out to search for my kind: bike nerds. Find a roundup of all the most interesting bits and bobs I found around the show grounds below.

Camos

I must have walked past this shiny carbon Y-frame-looking mountain bike five times before I finally stopped to look at it. Joke’s on me because this thing is sick. El Camös is Bresican for the Chamois, an alpine goat-antelope endemic to the area where this bike is designed and built, and is a boutique manufacturer from Passirano, in the province of Brescia, Italy.

The founders share countless years of DH World Cup experience, and with a patented suspension design, Edoardo Ferrari (no relation, I asked) designed this bike to suit all the needs he wanted to fulfill. Niche operations like this are what make the bike industry so worthwhile if you ask me.

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And if you’re about to draw comparisons to a Trek Y-frame; first, I see you, and secondly, this bike is very much a modern MTB with up-to-trend stack and reach numbers, short chainstays, a very XC 67° headtube angle and coming at 1,750 grams, the frame is really no slouch.

From Edo himself: “A winning synergy between different souls united by their passion for the two wheels, dirt roads, and challenges.”

Cicli Anesi

While relaxing at the Sour stand, a stylish man with a shiny bike walked past. If you know me, I’m all about shiny bicycles and stylish sunglasses. It’s ironic, really, as I have neither. Marco was walking around with a bike that he had just finished for himself, but didn’t have a stand to show it on. Now, if you’ve ever been to any of the big European bike shows, you’ll know that the people who walk around with bikes because they don’t have a stand are A) cunning and sneaky, I mean, they got a bike into the show after all, and B) generally not the most traditionally beautiful bikes around. Cicli Anesi is the exception.

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When Marco from Anesi rolled past me with this beauty, I couldn’t just let him walk past without some #rackspotting. I came to find out that the craftsmanship you can see here comes not only from the skills that Marco has honed over the past decade but also from four years of working under the one and only Dario Pegoretti. There’s real lineage here. Marco built this bike up for himself in his workshop about an hour away from Riva del Garda. Decked out with polished silver bits from Paul, White, and Velocity, it was a nearly literal shining star against the background of mostly matte black eBikes.

Megamo

I’ve always heard the stories about how Lance Armstrong and his crew put Girona on the map. The tales of some American cyclists, likely doped-to-the-gills, looking for a quiet place to train with pleasant weather year-round. Well, if The Traka last week proved anything, half of that story is already false, and the second part is only a half-truth. While I will concede that the road cycling in Girona is good, for every bit that the road cycling is good, the mountain biking is better. It took me years to learn this. After visiting time and time again for work, for training, for roadie stuff, I finally brought a mountain bike down… and geez, talk about lost time. Megamo has been around since the 90s, essentially since the beginning of mountain bikes, and although I don’t know what they were doing when I was four years old, they’re designing some banger on- and off-road bikes these days, right in Girona.

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You’d be forgiven for thinking Megamo is the new kid on the block, or at least, please forgive me for thinking that. Megamo is a bike company designing everything from road bikes to trail and enduro mountain bikes. Some may know Megamo already from the scene surrounding cycling in Girona as a whole, or maybe because you’ve seen bikepacking heartthrobs Ricard out riding one with his partner Alba.

The Megamo Track 29 is the short-travel, full-suspension platform that the Megamo-Buff racing team has used for huge MTB marathon races like Cape Epic and even at the mud-steep-rock chaos of the Riva del Garda marathon races held during the Bike Festival. The Track has 100mm and 120mm options, both with a flex pivot design tied to a linkage-driven single pivot.

The Rain is Gone, Bring on the Mud

On days two and three at Riva, everyone started to get in the stride of a long bike show. The weather had cleared up, and the jokes about how it was now hot and we all preferred the rain to the 30-European-degree heat we were about to get. Beers rolled out early, like 11 a.m. early, because, in case you didn’t know, Riva del Garda is located in Germany half of the year, and although I’m sure not all Germans prefer beer for lunch, the ones I was hanging out with did. Well, not actually, but you’d be forgiven for mistaking your location given the roll-call of German companies, German tourists, and cafes serving schnitzel and pommes mit mayo. When pressed about this, every self-loving German replies with, “Yeah, we like it here.” I like it here. Italy is nice. Can’t disagree with much of anything happening right now.

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Now the show is full tilt. Anyone and everyone who saw the weather and said, “Let’s wait a day,” is now here, in addition to everyone who was already planning to be here. Amid the one-way floating mosh pit of top tube tappers, I bump into a few more faces I recognize.

Hope

Hope brought out the mobile mechanic van, and in addition to providing support to people racing and riding bikes throughout the week, one could also admire a whole line-up of expertly CNC’d bike parts. Hope has expanded their line-up in the past couple of years by adding a variety of clipless pedals, carbon lever blade XC brakes, and now they’ve rounded out the line-up with some robust tubeless valves. You can now order Hope wheels with their valves and tape pre-installed, so it’s just tire, sealant, pump, and you’re good to go. Hope coordinates the color of the valve with the hub you chose, but I’m sure a quick email could get you the everything-bagel of anodized color combos! The valves are high-flow with a “five-way air path” and tire insert ready, which is pretty important for the rough stuff. All the Hope colors are available, including the newest bronze color, and come in 40mm or 60mm lengths.

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Hope also had their new ready-to-roll gravel wheels on display. With a 24mm internal width, these wheels bring Hope up to speed with the current state of 50mm-plus gravel bikes, stating a maximum width of 60mm. The rims, made of 6069 aluminum, are printed with a water slide logo, and the seam is welded. The spokes are supplied by Sapim, and a complete set starts at 1,780 grams.

Cyclite Ski Holder

If you’ve ever biked to go skiing, firstly you’re a glutton for pain, and secondly, you’ll know how much of a pain it can be to carry those skis. Cyclite has whipped up a pretty slick solution and had it on display at the Rossignol booth, on a bike, because they also make bikes!

This is apparently the third generation of this two-piece setup for carrying your shred sticks or skinny skis, which begs the question, where are the other two generations? Am I out of touch? Is age a determining factor of adaptability within our surroundings?

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Also for anyone asking the question “why?” please read my first statement, but also, more seriously, as snow stays higher and higher in the mountains, a bike is actually an incredibly viable solution for a multi-modal train-bike-ski backcountry expedition, whether in a resort or up a closed road to ski some hidden powder bowl.

The Cyclite is made in Germany from 3D-printed biodegradable plastic, fits both skis and splitboards, and weighs an unimportant 314 grams when compared to the five kilograms of skis and equipment you’ll be carrying with you!

Pinion and Kocmo

Pinion is the future. There I said it. I don’t own one, I don’t know if I want one, but I will in the future when it’s even better than it is right now. This last year, Pinion debuted their Smart.Shift shifter technology, which gave the green light to better integration across the whole gearbox-loving market. Now, with a small battery hidden in the downtube, you get the ease of electronic shifting, paired with the blinding durability and functionality of the Pinion gearbox. Win, win.

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The Kocmo Daytona Pi really leans into the durability theme by building a titanium, do-it-all gravel bike around the Pinion gearbox system with a Gates belt drive and TRP HyWire shifters. I’ve been a mechanic for far too long, but even with the years of wrenching in my fingers, the lack of maintenance on this bike is just downright dreamy.

Maxxis

Some of us like to go fast, and some of us like to have grip. These tires are for the former. For folks who pre-ordered these tires, the year-long wait may have been long, but the proof is in the pudding. Just avoid riding in pudding-like conditions, as these tires won’t be any help there.

Racking up wins under Nino Schurter, these tires are also an excellent choice for racking up KMs on a nice hardtail down gravel roads, perhaps paired with a Maxxis Ikon on the front, a lunch stop, and then a nice wine before a siesta… but hey, you do you, Nino.

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Maxxis is producing these tires with two different carcasses, one all the way up to 170tpi (remarkably supple for a modern MTB tire) and a second carcass with a 120tpi build. Maxxis states that the added suppleness aids grip by allowing the tire to deform more around chunky ground, which isn’t unimportant with such a quick tread. It should be noted that Nino used the 120tpi tire at Cape Epic, a sturdier tire with less chance of a sidewall slash. Probably smart considering how rocky those conditions are!

Bike Show Vibes

Saturday night devolves into a party, as is the plan—we even got an email telling us it was the plan. Surfing from the Pinion booth to 612 and Radoxx but finally settling at Propain, you get to sample every flavor of house music and German pilsner. To the aficionado, there are huge swings in flavor, BPM, and style. I am not an aficionado. The party moves to the city center, where gelato and beer shake hands in a cafe assumedly playing house music that is very different from the house music Propain was spinning. Spirits are high, and I can barely understand anyone who’s talking to me except for a Bavarian guy who is really into American football and is bummed that I like the Green Bay Packers. I call it even, preserve what’s left of my punk-show-worn hearing, and walk back home.

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On days three and four, some of us have the finish in sight, while others have zombied out and assume that through some freak Beckett-esque feedback loop, we will all be here until the end of time, waiting, handing out stickers, talking about how the weather in Italy is so nice.

Sour Bicycles

Sour is a frame manufacturer located in Dresden, Germany (and, full disclosure, they’re my employer). Sour was born as a side project at a much larger engineering firm, and since striking out on its own, Sour has moved all their production from Taiwan to their own facility just outside of Dresden.

Sour brought a selection of MTBs to Riva—makes sense with Riva being very literally nestled between beautiful alpine mountain bike trails—and also had two gravel bikes on show.

This Pasta Party features a full suite of Fox and Easton parts, nowadays two companies under one ownership. On the front is a 100mm Fox 32 SC fork with the brand-new reverse bridge, which has a sort of box girder vibe going on. I asked how much the bike weighed, which was answered with a shrug, and that’s probably fair, but doing the “pick it up and bounce it in the air” trick, I can very scientifically report that this bike is “pretty light.”

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Sour had three other mountain bikes on display, all products of a “Sour Racing Development” project: two full suspension steel/aluminum frames co-developed on a similar platform and one yet-to-be-named full steel single pivot. All three are planned to be released in the coming months.

Intend

Intend is a suspension and bike component manufacturer known for their attention to detail and upside-down style suspension forks from Freiburg, Germany, Intend brought all the bits and bobs for me to get my greasy claws on. Cornelius is the head of the company and is an engineer and designer in the truest sense of the word, making every millimeter of every component purposeful and intentional. He’s also known for carrying around a Nokia phone from 2010. Love it.

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I’m not qualified to talk about the ups and downs of upside-down or upside-side-up suspension, but I have eyes and an opinion, and I think Intend is making some of the best-looking forks and rear shocks out there. Even feeling the demo models mounted to the wooden table in the stand, I could tell they’re undoubtedly up there with the big kids on performance.

By building their forks USD (which is cool-kid talk for “upside down”), the unsprung mass is significantly reduced. Unsprung mass is one of the easier concepts to understand when discussing suspension performance: the more weight moving up and down, the harder your suspension has to work. By swapping the lowers (where your brake attaches) to the upper (where your bike touches the fork), the suspension is able to move and react with less interia.

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If you ride with water bottles or bags clamped to your suspension fork, you’re adding unsprung mass to the fork and asking more and more of your suspension, therefore reducing its performance. Intend “solves” this problem by flipping the fork upside down. It’s not a new concept, but it’s one Intend has pulled off better than most others I’ve seen. But don’t believe me, ask Alexander Kopp about his amazing ride at this year’s Atlas Mountain Race on an Intend Samurai!

Actofive

Actofive is a Dresden, Germany-based bike frame and component manufacturer and engineering firm. Simon, the brains behind the massive CNC mill that takes up half of his workshop, is the kind of engineer who doesn’t always have much to say, but whenever he starts looking at someone else’s work, he’s got a list of questions about things I never knew existed. Lots of, “There’s no English word for…,” and honestly, given the length of the German words he’s using, he’s probably right.

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Actofive frames and components are machined out of aluminum using a proprietary vacuum-clamping method developed in-house to CNC the frame halves that are later bonded together to form a frame. Some frame parts are machined down to a 0.8mm thickness.

Actofive had two bikes at the show, a blue I-Train, their versatile short-travel option, and a silver-everything P-Train at the Intend booth. Both bikes featured parts from the tippy-top pinnacle of machined-in-Germany components from Actofive themselves or the company behind the booth displaying the bike.

612

612 Parts is a startup company located in the border region between Switzerland and Germany. Felix, the owner and mad scientist, is developing MTB brakes but had a new flat-mount caliper at the show as well. 612 was sharing a booth with Radoxx, the company doing the machining for Felix, who have also introduced chainrings together with Dangerholm and other small tuning bits.

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Flat-mount brake. The FM caliper has two 22mm pistons, making it SRAM or Shimano-ready. With a switch of the seals and O-rings, this caliper will act as a drop-in upgrade for drop-bar bikes using brakes from either DOT or mineral oil. Currently, Felix has reached the testing phase and is running this flat-mount brake with an adapter on his trail bike. If the brake survives alpine trails on his Last Tarvo, it’s going to be stellar on gravel and road bikes!

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MTB Brakes. 612 started off with the hard part first, making brakes for mountain biking. The Minecraft-style is unique, but Felix is also developing a lightweight version of the lever for them.

Fraezen

Fraezen is a one-man show that produces chainrings, derailleur cages, and other components. Located in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Fraezen operates as a side project under the umbrella of Herrmann GmbH, a CNC part manufacturer and engineering firm.
Robert from Fraezen is currently developing a new crankset to complement his throwback multi-spline direct mount chainrings. The silver crank arms with the pastel eggplant color on that Santa Cruz are phenomenal.

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Robert is also designing derailleur cages that appear solid and serve as a great replacement option for a rock-beaten cage or as an upgrade to a stiffer cage for snappier shifting. Although the options for aftermarket derailleur cages and parts are growing daily, I won’t be complaining. With performance-oriented derailleurs seemingly becoming more and more expensive, the need for smaller companies to produce parts to keep a sometimes nearly 1,000-euro derailleur functioning is only going to increase.

Qvist

Qvist is a hub producer located in Dresden, Germany that came out swinging with a patent-pending double ratchet freehub mechanism. Qvist has been around for a minute but has bumped into manufacturing problems here and there in the scaling process. Qvist makes all of its hub parts in-house, so the pipeline from conception to production is bound to have its bumps along the way.

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Qvist went live with a pre-order a couple of months ago and offers complete wheels or hubs only for those who’d like to have custom wheels built. Qvist hubs come in several flavors for boost and non-boost bikes, six-bolt and centerlock, and your favorite proprietary cassette interface! Qvist currently only lists black and silver anodization options on the site, but fingers crossed for these beautiful satin colors on their display hubs!

Capsuled

Anyone who’s ever done any bikepacking knows that keeping organized and finding things easily in your bags is a dark art mastered by an elite few. Capsuled is designing bags for the rest of us. This small company, located near Frankfurt, Germany, is sonic-welding clear panels into its new line of bikepacking bags. The gray oval surrounding the clear panel is even reflective for added safety. These bags appear to be so new that they’ve yet to hit their website, so stay tuned for more details.

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In addition to its bikepacking bags line-up, Capsuled also has a selection of backpacks, hip bags, and other small bags for on and off the bike.

Let us know what caught your eye in the Conversation below!

Further Reading

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