This month at Eurobike in Friedrichshafen, the world’s leading trade fair in the bicycle industry, the lock manufacturer Hexlox was able to hold their own against a number of other innovative entries. Now the Berlin based company has an extensive marketing and PR package to look forward to which they will be able to utilize to support their retailer and consumer communications.

Over the course of the fair, which took place from August 30 to September 2, a scouting team from the media service provider Fahrrad-PR.de took a closer look at the various exhibitors. In the lead up to the Eurobike, companies had the opportunity to submit their entries for the award online. After a very positive response to the inaugural award at last year’s Eurobike, there was a noticeable increase in the number of companies participating in the competition. The goal of the award is draw attention to small yet innovative companies who are active in an industry that is so heavily dominated by a few large and powerful companies.

Increasing participation

“In the face of the large variety of manufacturers and brands in the industry, rather unknown brands are often unfortunately under-viewed, lack exposure and have difficulties reaching dealers and customers, despite the quality of their innovative products. With this award, we want to make a small contribution to helping make these companies more visible. Last year, while looking for the Hidden Champion for the first time, we were able to get to know a lot of exciting companies and their products. While presenting the award last year, we enjoyed a very positive response, which inspired us to repeat the process again this year. The increase in the number of participants relative to last year’s competition is a clear sign that we have hit a nerve in the industry with our action,” says George S. Pascal, the Executive Director at ITMS, the agency behind Fahrrad-PR.de which has been active in the bicycle industry for more than ten years.

This year’s “Hidden Champion“ Hexlox is concerned with the problem that many bike thieves are mostly looking to strip innocent bikes of their expensive parts such as handlebars, seats, seat posts, wheels and forks. There are many parts on bikes that can be removed with simple tools in a very short period of time with relative ease. Hexlox has made it their mission to prevent this from happening. The Hexlox founders Marcus Tonndorf and Ian Berrell developed a tiny, magnet locking mechanism that fits into the head of the Allen bolts that are used on almost every bike to secure the various components to the frame. The tiny locks which weigh less than half of a gram a piece, fit exactly into the head of the bolt, and can only be unlocked with a unique coded key belonging to the owner.

Hexlox designs and produces their more than 30 products with different sizes and styles by utilizing precise and high quality computer assisted manufacturing processes, 100 percent in Germany.