Everything moves by bicycle: CicloCinema

Trentino, 2018

CicloCinema is a cultural association founded in 2018 in Trentino by brothers Andrea and Federico Bertoldi — the latter described in 2018 press as an electronics engineer — and run in 2026 by a team of eleven volunteers ^1,2. The association transports its generators, "un inverter con batteria" (an inverter with battery), projector, sound system and screen on trailers and cargo bikes between venues, without a support van ⁵.

Specifications

What do these labels mean?

Field	Value	Confidence	Sources
Founded	2018 Trentino, by Andrea and Federico Bertoldi	Documented	^1,2
Volunteer team	11 volunteers (2026)	Documented	¹
Original 2018 fleet	10 bicycles and 10 cycle-generators	Documented	³
2018 design: bikes pedalling at once	8 of 10 in constant motion; 2 reserved for rider swaps	Documented	³
Current fleet (2026)	8 bicycles and 8 cycle-generators	Documented	⁴
Website transition	between 16 March 2026 and June 2026 Italian homepage updated from ten to eight bicyclesThe English-language page still carried the stale "ten bicycles" text as of this research.	Documented	⁴
Buffer	"inverter with battery" capacity and voltage not disclosedThe association's own equipment list documents that an inverter and a battery are carried; the battery's capacity and the inverter's output voltage are not published anywhere and are not inferred here.	Documented	^5,6
Aggregate power claim, 2018 crowdfunding page	fino a 3000 (up to 3,000) W, from ten generatorsResearch correction:Internally inconsistent against the same design's contemporaneous press claim of "up to 1,000 W" — a threefold gap. Divided across ten generators this implies 100–300 W peak per bike, above every measured or operator-stated per-rider figure elsewhere in this research; excluded from any sizing calculation.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	³
Aggregate power claim, 2018 press coverage	fino a 1000 (up to 1,000) WResearch correction:Contradicts the crowdfunding page's own 3,000 W claim for the identical ten-generator design; neither figure is a specification, and no per-rider or projector-plus-audio demand figure has ever been published for this system.	Promotional / press-reported — not verified	²
2023 season throughput	13 screenings, over 1,500 spectators (≈115 per screening)	Documented	⁷
2024 season	over 20 screenings, including a first Balkan tour (northern Bosnia, 26 July – 1 August)	Documented	⁸
Original design audience target	circa 50 people	Documented	³
Claimed audiences up to 300	not documentedAppears in secondary material; no primary source supports it, and it exceeds the original design target of about 50 people.	Uncertain	³
Deployed pedal counts by event	7 (Cesiomaggiore, August 2025) to 10 (Swiss partner event, September 2026) bikes"Eight" is the current stated fleet, not a universal constant.	Documented	^9,10
ASSA Novara attendance cap (comparison point, separate operator)	50–70 attendees per screeningA separate Italian municipal pedal cinema (five editions, 2021–2025), cited here for contrast, not as a CicloCinema figure.	Documented	^11,12

Ten bicycles in 2018, eight in 2026

The 2018 design, per the project's crowdfunding page, comprised ten bicycles and ten cycle-generators, of which eight were pedalled at all times while two served for rider swaps: "8 biciclette su 10 dovranno essere sempre in movimento per soddisfare la domanda energetica dell'iniziativa, mentre le restanti 2 serviranno come possibilità per darsi il cambio con il pubblico" ("8 bicycles out of 10 must always be in motion to satisfy the initiative's energy demand, while the remaining 2 serve for swapping with the audience") ³. The website said "dieci biciclette" — ten bicycles — from 2019 through a Wayback Machine snapshot of 16 March 2026; between that date and June 2026 the Italian homepage changed to eight bicycles, eight cycle-generators and eight trailers, a configuration the Tolentino municipality's notice for the association's 2 August 2026 tour stop confirms ⁴. The English-language page still carries the ten-bicycle text. Deployed counts vary by event — seven bikes at Cesiomaggiore in August 2025, ten advertised by a Swiss partner event for September 2026 — so eight is the current stated fleet, not a constant ^9,10.

Line diagram of the CicloCinema chain with buffer capacity and load marked as not published — Energy flow, stage by stage, as documented for CicloCinema's nomadic cinema^5,3,4,8,13,2 Image: BicycleCinema.org, drawn from the research corpus

Energy flow, stage by stage^5,3,4,8,13,2

8 riders (2026 fleet; 8-of-10 with rotation in the 2018 design)
Ciclogeneratori (per-bike generators; coupling not published)
Central "inverter with battery" (buffer capacity not published)
Projector + sound system (electrical demand not published)

Two 2018 power claims, no specification

The 2018 crowdfunding page said the ten generators "andranno a produrre fino a 3000 watt di potenza" — will produce up to 3,000 watts of power — while press coverage of the same design, published around the same time, said "fino a 1000 watt," up to 1,000 watts ^3,2. Both are promotional peaks rather than specifications: divided across ten generators, either figure implies 100–300 W peak per bike, above every measured or operator-stated per-rider figure elsewhere in this corpus. No per-rider wattage and no combined projector-plus-audio demand has been published, and the buffer is documented only as "an inverter with battery," with no capacity or voltage disclosed ^5,6. That battery places CicloCinema in the buffered family with KLAK, Oekotrainer and CycleCinemaClub rather than the live-wire family of Electric Pedals or Efecto Pedal: the screening does not stop the instant a rider dismounts ⁶.

A second Italian pedal cinema is a point of contrast. ASSA Novara's "Cinema a pedali sotto le stelle" runs a municipal, single-city model with attendance capped at 50 to 70 people per screening ^11,12, close to CicloCinema's original design target of about 50; CicloCinema tours — Trentino, Piedmont, Ticino and, in 2024, northern Bosnia — and the cargo-bike-and-trailer logistics exist to support that range.

The seasons

The 2023 season ran 13 screenings for more than 1,500 spectators, roughly 115 per screening ⁷. The 2024 season exceeded twenty screenings, including a Balkan tour through northern Bosnia — Prijedor, Novi Grad, Bosanska Krupa, Sanski Most, Banja Luka — from 26 July to 1 August, and the 2026 calendar adds a Marche tour and a Ticino date ^8,13. The original design target was a screening "a favore di circa 50 persone," for about 50 people; claims of audiences up to 300 in some secondary material have no primary source ³.