Live From the Bianchi e-Omnia World Premiere
A decade ago at EuroBike, I got stuck sat next to an e-bike entrepreneur on the two hour shuttle from Zurich to Friedrichshafen. He talked endlessly about how the future of cycling was the emerging e-bike technology that he’d brought with him, how it was going to make him a billionaire, how it was going to reinvent everything from cities to… um… well, I kind of tuned out.
He was so enthused to have a journalist’s ear that he invited me for exclusive test rides of his entire line, and exclusive inside access to learn everything about e-bike technology. He seemed rather disappointed when I turned up without my film crew. Still, I blasted around the old zeppelin warehouse at silly speeds, which made him happy.
That exclusive knowledge made my infrequent, and half-arsed, articles about e-bikes apparently very captivating to e-bike manufacturers for the next decade. Despite me being comparatively uninterested in e-bike technology, we got the exclusive (at least for about 12 hours) first-look at the new LeMond e-bike recently.
And now Bianchi has invited me to its World Premiere of its new e-Omnia bike. To be honest, now I’m in, it doesn’t look as exclusive as I expected. “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me,” and all that.
Anyway, live updates follow below, for as long as my interest holds.
The holding page is sharing some pretty terrible slam poetry. Like, Wednesday night in Cambridge, Massachusetts bad.
IT IS NOW THE TIME TO CHANGE
THE WAY WE MOVE, THE WAY WE LIVE.
WITH THIS IN MIND, WE ASKED OURSELVES HOW WE COULD CREATE AN E-BIKE FOR EVERY TYPE OF RIDER, HELPING PEOPLE MOVE BETTER AND SMARTER THROUGH THEIR LIVES.
THE SOLUTION IS THE NEXT STEP IN BIANCHI’S
ELECTRIC REVOLUTION: E-OMNIA
Cool. Some of the words are changing colors. Could be a clue. But I don’t care enough to figure it out, because it’s about to start anyway.
The clock has hit 1800 CET and the curtains have pulled back, revealing… a YouTube video that hasn’t started yet. Maybe I can embed it.
Congrats, you’re at the premiere now too. Can you write some jokes for me?
We’re on our third countdown timer of the evening. This better not be a social experiment.
I’d rather ride any the bikes he walked past. But the CEO has just said how important it is to move from road bikes to ebikes. Welp.
Finally. But wait…
First a montage of scenes from Death Stranding.
Then this guy endorsing it. No idea who he is. Presumably famous in Italy.
Oh he’s a race car driver.
Finally, the e-Omnia. The aesthetic of this shot is well within our interests. The bike… um. Is not. But it does sound cool if you’re interested in these things. Maybe you live in a German city or something. Who knows.
Here’s the famous car driver riding it. They keep saying “the cyclist is our focus” but the fact that they sponsor about a thousand cyclists but chose this dude to promote it suggests otherwise.
Granny bikes, to be honest.
Some specs. No idea. They’re introducing a mountain bike version now. I’m tapping out.
So that concludes our underwhelming and disappointing coverage of the launch event. You can look at their website if you give a shit.