How India Bike Week has been growing the leisure biking community in India

India Bike Week (IBW) is the Mecca for those who eat, sleep and breathe riding in India. Leisure riders across India have been making their way, alone and in packs, to IBW for more than seven years now. Starting with a bang in 2013, at the time featuring 5,000+ motorcycle enthusiasts to the gathering it is today, IBW’s journey is a testament to the passion of thousands of riders across India. IBW 2022 hosted the community of motorcycle enthusiasts as a celebration of riding culture, freedom, and independence.

The event witnessed like-minded petrolheads, passionate bikers, biking communities, etc., who showed their love and passion for two wheels. The event provided a unique opportunity to explore Indian motorcycle culture and also promote and encourage the culture of riding and riding communities in India.

In conversation with Adgully, Martin Da Costa, CEO, 70 EMG and Festival Director, speaks about biking culture in the country. On the idea behind beginning the India Bike Community, Da Costa said, “We started IBW in 2013 at a time when 70 EMG, the company we all work for, was filled with young guys and girls who would take off every weekend on their motorbikes to explore India. So, the idea of producing a Festival as an annual celebration of the best of Indian Motorbiking culture, machines, and biking clubs was a natural progression for us. The idea came to fruition in a hotel bar over a whiskey and a cigar with Anoop Prakash, the first MD of Harley Davidson in 2012. The rest, they say, is history!”

Speaking on the seven-year journey of the initiative, he shared, “When we started, we calculated that there were fewer than 100 biking clubs across India. In 2022, were were in touch with well over 400. There has been an enormously powerful growth in the leisure biking community in India. India Bike Week has been central to that process, not just through our outreach program and festival but the phenomenally successful ‘Chai and Pakoda’ rides across multiple cities in India. The fact that IBW was very quickly, universally recognised as one of India’s largest and most respected annual Festivals gave a tremendous push to the whole concept of Biking for leisure, independent travel, and fun. What is interesting about it is that with India’s demography, the future growth in biking is going to be phenomenal. We’re just at the start of this journey. The next decade will see IBW grow tenfold and more. See below for how we’ll be doing this.”

Speaking about the factors driving the growth of IBW, Da Costa explained that the Festival has always been about three things – the bikers themselves, the brotherhood, and meeting and celebrating with people who share the same passion, seeing and experiencing the best motorbikes on the planet.

“We don’t care what motorbike you ride when you get to IBW. It can be a tiny commuter bike or the latest Harley Davidson – you are on two wheels, so you’re one of us, part of the family. That, and the fact that India Bike Week itself is just a brilliant, brilliant Festival. It has won multiple awards over the years for its size, scale, design, and the sheer amount of stuff happening,” he added.

Elaborating on the marketing and promotional efforts for the Festival, Da Costa said, “Social media and the opportunity to engage digitally have allowed us to have multiple conversations with our community – a far more effective marketing tool than the relentless series of adverts that used to characterise event and product marketing 10 years ago. Consequently, we rely increasingly on direct communication with our Indian, Middle Eastern, and Asian communities of bikers. The Festival is constantly being tweaked and changed to adapt to real-time requirements and requests by our attendees. IBW belongs to the biking community of India and not just us. That’s always been one of the key mantras behind IBW – and the interconnected digital world allows us to live that mantra day by day in every aspect of the marketing mix. Our marketing strategy is not a strategy at all – every day, we just live the fact that IBW is about community and conversation we don’t even call the process ‘marketing’ anymore. Its community conversation, and it’s a two-way, consistently engaged process.”