Design & Innovation Award 2021 – urban and technology trends

Bike doesn’t always mean bike. The ebike boom is delivering incredibly diverse and innovative approaches to mobility in the cities of today and tomorrow. Bikes are increasingly turning into ebikes and aren’t just being seen as a status symbol but also a solution for many traffic, environmental, health and urban space concerns. With everything from cutting-edge high-tech concepts to smart software, many imaginative developments await us in the bike sector for 2021. Modern products are doing double duty, helmets store data, jackets function as rear lights and alongside your own abilities, AI wants to augment your ride. The electrification and digitalisation of bikes present versatile potential and could be one of the leading trends in the bike sector.

Purely mechanical bikes won’t disappear in the foreseeable future. On the Design & Innovation Award 2021, progressive gravel, road and mountain bikes form a large part of the awarded product spectrum without a single electronic component to be seen. Nonetheless, it will become increasingly difficult to get a bike or group of components like a drivetrain, suspension or wheelset, which don’t hide away a small battery, sensor or cable somewhere. The trend towards ebikes has been clear for several years and in 2021 we will find further ebike off-shoots, like kids’ ebikes, E-road and E-gravel bikes, that have been the exclusive domain of analog bikes until now. Whole ecosystems of drivetrains, motor software, displays, apps and customisation opportunities are being built up around ebikes. On top of that, there new electronic parts like displays being integrated into frames, like the Forestal Siryon already does.

Find the most important urban- and technology-trends of 2021, mixed up with exciting backgroundinformation and all the winners of this years Design & Innovation Award, here:
design-innovation-award.com