Earned media in cycling tourism

Earned media is coverage, amplification and distribution you did not pay for. The journalist who writes about your destination after riding your routes. The creator who shares your brand because the product performed. The algorithm pushing your video because riders watched it to the end. Over nine years across thirty-plus destinations and brands in Europe, Africa and the United States, that has added up to more than 110 million earned views without a single euro of paid media.

Why cycling audiences are different

Cycling is a participation sport with unusually high community trust. Riders follow riders. They read accounts by people who actually rode the route. They watch phone clips from cold, lost, underprepared cyclists who finished anyway. Authenticity compounds, and polish is frequently a liability. A rain-storm clip from a Pyrenean pass outperforms a perfectly lit production, because it is true.

Three layers

The experience layer. The content has to come from a rider who actually rode the routes or tested the equipment. The rider is the story, not a camera operator executing a brief. For Visit Luxembourg, three to four routes were ridden and documented in each of the four regions to demonstrate — not claim — that Luxembourg could sustain a multi-day holiday. More than ninety thousand Komoot clicks.

The distribution layer. Cycling media placements. Platform-native content, where Komoot dominates European route planning; the Zuiderwaterlinie bikepacking collection was promoted organically by Komoot as a flagship example and contributed to more than a million combined route views. Creator and journalist networks. And physical presence at Eurobike, CyclingWorld Düsseldorf and the Fiets & Wandelbeurs.

The amplification layer. The resharing and community response that multiplies the original reach, earned through relevance and timing. At CyclingWorld Düsseldorf, Pilot Cycles content was reshared organically by DT Swiss, Schwalbe, Pinion and Vittoria: 830,000 views and 86 qualified leads from a self-initiated, unfunded trip.

GRAVAA at the Gravel World Championships

As GRAVAA's first and only communication professional in an engineer-led team, the programme generated sixty million impressions with no paid budget. Marianne Vos raced on GRAVAA equipment, and the positioning happened with journalists in advance, so the coverage occurred organically at maximum relevance. Thirty-plus outlets, social followings tripled, nine thousand new subscribers. The same method was applied later at Paris-Roubaix.

What earned media is not

It is not influencer marketing as usually practised — a paid creator post is paid media with a human face. It is not traditional PR: a generic press-list blast produces generic coverage. It is not a content-production discipline; volume without a genuine story fills a calendar and builds nothing. And it is not short-term. Komoot routes accumulate for years, the Flanders partnership is in its fourth year, and Go Türkiye has rebooked four times since 2022.

Four questions before you start

What is the genuine story — not what you want people to think, but what is actually there? Who should tell it: a rider-journalist with real credibility, or a production company executing a brief? Where does your audience actually look for information? And how will you measure it: route clicks, email captures, qualified leads and bookings, rather than impressions alone?