What makes a cycling product truly innovative? The Antonio Colombo Innovation & Design Award is born

What makes a cycling product truly innovative? Not the spec sheet, but the nerve to try something that does not exist yet. That was Antonio Colombo's lesson, and from that lesson a new award is born.

Antonio Colombo's lesson

At Columbus and Cinelli, over almost half a century, Antonio Colombo fathered some of the most innovative and most argued-over products in the industry. The Laser of 1981, the first track frame with aerodynamic profiles and later a monocoque structure. The Rampichino of 1984, which brought the mountain bike to Europe and gave the category an Italian name before Italy had one of its own. The Spinaci of 1996, the clip-on handlebar extensions the peloton took up so fast that the UCI banned them. And the collaborations that pushed the bicycle towards art outright: in 1987 Keith Haring painted the disc wheels of a Laser.

One thread holds these very different objects together: a willingness to bet on the unorthodox, earlier and harder than anyone else. That is the spirit cycling has now decided to celebrate.

An award for the most disruptive product in cycling

That spirit is what the Antonio Colombo Innovation & Design Award honours: the first cycling design and innovation award to be presented in Italy. It will be handed out on 4 September at the International Bike Festival, the Italian industry's reference event, at the Misano World Circuit. The award is an initiative of Velo Media – The Business of Cycling, in collaboration with the International Bike Festival and with the support of Vitesse.

The award will single out the most disruptive product to come out of the two-wheel industry, judged on design and technological innovation. Any product that reached the market from January 2025 onwards is eligible, in any category. Entries will be judged by a committee of industry figures who shared a stretch of road with Antonio Colombo, better placed than anyone to read the restless instinct that ran through his working life.

How to enter, by 10 August

Entries are open until Monday 10 August, through the dedicated form. If in recent months you have put a product on the market that pushed the boundary of what is possible a little further out, this is the moment to put it forward: the stage is the most important gathering of the Italian cycling industry.

Our role

Vitesse is proud to stand alongside Velo Media and the International Bike Festival on this project. It is exactly the kind of initiative we believe in: putting a spotlight on those who, in cycling, truly have the nerve to innovate. Because a product that breaks the mould deserves to be told with the same care with which it was designed, and that is precisely what we do, from strategy to the launch of a product.

Vitesse is an Italian Media PR and communications agency specialised in cycling, sport, outdoor and active tourism. We have worked since 1991, alongside events, brands and destinations. Explore our services or get in touch.

Opening photo: Antonio Colombo with the Cinelli Laser, wheels painted by Keith Haring (1987).