Where It Began: Ultiracer's Early Launch at Eurobike 2019
By Shaun Cheon
Every product has a first public outing. For Ultiracer, it was Eurobike 2019 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. In September, RealDesignTech brought the platform to one of the world's leading bicycle trade shows for an early, initial launch, and let visitors find out for themselves what riding a real bike indoors could feel like.
Eurobike 2019
Eurobike 2019 took place from September 4 to 7 at Messe Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. The show opened with three trade days and closed with a Festival Day for all bike fans on Saturday, September 7, and more than 1,400 exhibitors were expected (Schwäbische Zeitung, 2019).
Among all those bikes, components and e-bikes, our booth had a simple invitation on its banner: Try the new cycling roller. Under the Ultiracer name and its tagline, Ultimate Real Cycling, three ideas summed up what we wanted people to feel: Safety, Sliding Left & Right and Realism.
What visitors tried
On Ultiracer, a regular road bike rolls on a flat roller platform while being held upright, so riders can pedal hard without worrying about falling over. The bike can also slide left and right, and that sideways movement becomes steering on screen.
At Eurobike, we put that to work with games. Riders shifted the bike to dodge and aim in a retro-style space shooter, or steered down the road in a classic arcade-style racer, all while pedalling a real bicycle.
Spotted by the German bike press
The editors of eMTB-News.de, part of the MTB-News.de network, toured the halls looking for creative and curious finds, many of them from start-ups at modest stands, and Ultiracer made their list. They summed it up as a way to play retro games while doing something good for your health, and noted that sliding the bike sideways on the free roller moves the shooting spaceship in the Space Invaders-style game (eMTB-News.de, 2019).
A warm first welcome
For a first outing, we could not have asked for more. The response from the riders, families and industry visitors who stopped by our booth was warm, and it gave us real confidence that a steerable, real-bike riding experience indoors was worth building.
We took every conversation and piece of feedback home with us to Korea. Eurobike 2019 was only the start.
Watch the highlights
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View on YouTube ↗Thank you to everyone who visited us in Friedrichshafen, to the Eurobike organizers, and to eMTB-News.de and photographer Johannes Herden for capturing our booth. To learn more about Ultiracer, get in touch with us.
References
- eMTB-News.de. (2019, September 20). Eurobike 2019: Durchgedreht – 14 Fundstücke von kreativ bis kurios [Eurobike 2019: 14 creative and curious finds]. https://www.emtb-news.de/news/eurobike-2019-kuriositaeten/#ultiracer
- Schwäbische Zeitung. (2019). Internationale Newcomer zeigen sich auf Eurobike [International newcomers at Eurobike]. https://www.schwaebische.de/regional/bodensee/friedrichshafen/internationale-newcomer-zeigen-sich-auf-eurobike-262062
- Ultiracer. (2019). [EUROBIKE 2019] ULTIRACER Launching Event Highlights (Eng) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_VdkusRXAY
Photos: Johannes Herden / MTB-News.de