STEVENS tested and presented to the press the new STEVENS Whaka+ ES. The Riva del Garda Bike Festival marks the beginning of the mountain bike season - and is also a view into next year. STEVENS rented out several current models - among them especially Whaka, Sledge and Sonora bikes and at the same time presented its next season models to the press.

Our colleagues from the R&D department took the Whaka+ ES to the trails around Lake Garda in northern Italy, fine tuning the wide-tire touring fully’s set-up. We let German BIKE Magazine have a close look at the Whaka+ ES that featured an extensive report in their current issue. For the Spanish magazines Macario Llorantes, STEVENS’ official distributor in Spain was an important person to talk to. The better the weather the more bikes the STEVENS team was able to rent out.

The events at the STEVENS booth followed the eternal logic of bike festivals: On the first day it was raining, so consultation and information talks - also with many present STEVENS dealers - made up the most part of the activity at the booth. The second day was sunny, so rental was the busiest. The third day was cloudy, so response was a little more reluctant while the positive feedback about the rental bikes was quite the opposite. The new HYMERCAR Rio RV actually blended in perfectly with the STEVENS booth.

Great Rental and Racing
Riva Bike Festival is also a place to introduce novelties – Shimano presented their new 11-speed XT mountain bike gruppo that will provide even better shifting and braking performance to all STEVENS bikes with the ”ES” suffix in the upcoming season. This was added by lots of sports: Veronika Brüchle of team STEVENS MTB Racing won the Eliminator Sprint riding her STEVENS Sonora SL while Florian Thaller of Team Zwillingscraft-STEVENS came in second in the 44km (27ml), 1,523 vertical meters (5000ft) Marathon race.

The booth team’s conclusion: The festival was really fun, the feedback about the bikes was very good – they are eagerly looking forward to the next festival. E.g. the BIKE Festival at Willingen/Germany, where STEVENS, of course, will also be present as an exhibitor.