Bike Kingdom Lenzerheide celebrates a nearly perfect debut season

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Bike Kingdom Lenzerheide opened its gates for the first time at the start of the 2020 summer season – and they did it with a bang: “The Legend of Tommy G” led the way in a spectacular, albeit not too serious fashion. A kingdom for mountain bike riders was to arise in the Swiss Alps. Not even mixed-up 2020 could stop it. The late bike opening was compensated by a corona-induced bike boom. Looking back, the rulers of the Bike Kingdom are more than happy with its debut season. The Bike Kingdom App proved itself not only as the digital extension of the trails, but also helped to spread the riders more equally across the kingdom and to reduce conflict with hikers – an issue that still shows room for improvement.

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Photo by Sterling Lorence

The announcement of the Bike Kingdom was a complete success. The YouTube clip “The Legend of Tommy G”, produced by Anthill Films, reached one million views within just two weeks. Of course, Lenzerheide’s repositioning includes new trails, such as the Top Fops singletrail, which connects the June Hütte with the Alp Fops or the “Urdenfürggli Twister,” which is riddled with tight switchbacks and takes riders to the Mottahütte, are just a few of the new offerings. There is also a new skill center at the Rothorn station, new drops in the bike park and the Bike Kingdom App of course. These efforts weren’t in vain: the Lenzerheide holiday region had the biggest increase in overnight stays compared with previous years across Graubünden and third-biggest across Switzerland. The cable-car companies speak of a record summer. Furthermore the “Bike Kingdom” project has been nominated for a Milestone, the official Swiss Tourist Award.

Photo by Lukas Imhof

Marc Schlüssel, Head of Marketing in the holiday region Lenzerheide looks back on a very special season in a very special year: “With the creation of the Bike Kingdom, the holiday region gave a new form of identification to old and new bike fans. Our aim, this very repositioning, that creates a USP in the market while satisfying all the rider’s wishes went very well.” Ironically, Covid-19 and the associated bike boom helped with the launch: “With the Bike Kingdom, we reinforced the topic ‘bike’ at the right time, thus Corona, and we started on the road to a successful development in future.”

The testRIDE event, which saw 2,000 people attend during three days, as well as the Bike Kingdom Feast, with special guest Tommy G, were a huge success. Both events had to take place on a smaller scale as originally planned but proved that the prevention concepts work.

All bike enthusiasts who are planning to make the most of this season, can still enjoy the Bike Kingdom until the 25th October. The X-Calibur Quest is a final highlight before the season ends: Ride number 3,000 down the Motta Express – one of the Bike Kingdom’s new trails – will be awarded with a Rocky Mountain Instinct BC Edition full-suspension bike.

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For more information on Bike Kingdom Lenzerheide please visit:

www.bikekingdom.ch
Facebook: www.facebook.com/bike.kingdom
Instagram: www.instagram.com/bike.kingdom

Title image by Christian Egelmair.