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IT 
Starting from the assumption that 2020 was a year to forget from many points of view, there is a positive note and it is right to highlight it: it was the year of the bicycle, in particular the electric one.
The incentives dedicated to the creation of new infrastructures and the mobility bonus have certainly strengthened a trend that had already begun to be recorded in 2019, which, compared to 2018, marked an increase of over 13% in e-bikes sold, equal to approximately 195,000 unit.
Suffice it to say that, compared to 2018, around 195,000 e-bikes were sold with a growth of 13%, comparable only with the growth rates of mobile phones in the 1990s-2000s.
For 2020, Confindustria Ancma has estimated further growth in this market, of over 20% compared to 2019 and it is expected that, at the end of the year, Italy will surpass almost 250,000 e-bikes sold.
The real big surprise is that, among e-bikes, the e-city and e-trekking they represented almost the 50% of total sales, a very important signal demonstrating the new orientations of Italians, aimed at moving with alternative means to cars and public transport even for daily travel, starting to appreciate a more eco-sustainable and conscious lifestyle.
Despite the significant growth figure, we are still far from the numbers of the rest of Europe.
Just think that the 80% of bikes sold in Northern Europe are City and Trekking, while in Italy, until now, Mountain Bikes have always dominated the market.
This data, therefore, makes us understand how great the growth of this market segment could be, dedicated to non-athletes, to ordinary people who use this means of transport for daily travel, trips out of town or alternative holidays.
The great boom in sales in Italy, so much so that there are some difficulties in finding some e-bike models in shops, has certainly been encouraged by the mobility bonus, but not only that.
The incentives dedicated to the creation of infrastructures, dedicated areas and urban redevelopments have given great impetus to changing habits by rethinking the e-bike as the ideal means of getting around.
But will it be a “love of a lifetime” or a current trend?
“There is a lot of enthusiasm in the Italian industry at the moment, but also a lot of caution”, explains Piero Nigrelli of Confindustria Ancma. “Certainly the incentives will no longer exist next year, but we, like Acma, are working on other types of incentives aimed at increasing bicycle mobility in cities. The change in attitude of Italians towards the use of bicycles and the proliferation of cycle paths in the main Italian cities give us hope that this trend will not be reversed".
And we are convinced of this!