Dublin City Council together with Dublin Cycling Campaign / Cyclist.ie are bidding to host the world’s largest cycling conference, Velo-City, in 2019.

At this stage Dublin City has been short-listed along with Helsinki in a two horse race to host this prestigious conference. Next year it will be held in Arnhem-Nijmegen in The Netherlands, when thousands of cycling experts, enthusiasts and advocates will descend on the twin cities to immerse themselves in all things cycling.

Imagine this happening in Dublin in 2019! It may well become a reality, as Dublin City Council and Fáilte Ireland have got behind the bid and are actively working to bring it here. As part of the bid process, a Bid Assessment Team from the European Cyclists’ Federation were in Dublin two weeks ago to run the rule over Dublin’s bid and view Dublin’s cycling infrastructure and future plans. They examined the bid in detail, as well as meeting officials and politicians, from the Minister of Transport Shane Ross downwards.

The fact that we in Dublin made it into the second stage of the bid process is in itself a tribute to the team who worked on it and the cycling plans for Dublin City. Dublin will know very soon if we have been successful in our head-to-head with Helsinki! Fingers crossed that we make it over the line and bring thousands of overseas cycling enthusiasts to Dublin in 2019!