VéloCity Global is the biennial gathering of key figures involved in the development of everyday cycling all around the world. The European Cyclists’ Federation organises the event and in 2016 it was held in Taipei, Taiwan. At our July public meeting, we’ll be discussing the best ideas that emerged from the conference.

Will Andrews, one of Dublin Cycling Campaign’s former Chairpersons, travelled from his base in New Zealand to Taipei on our behalf. Joining Will was Ballymena based Barry Flood. Barry is a board member of both Cycling UK (formerly known as CTC), a mainly UK based campaigning organisation with 66,000 members, and a Vice-President (and Treasurer) of ECF based in Brussels. Barry has been a “functional” cyclist pretty well all his life but his main love, as he describes it, is “international cycle touring with my long suffering wife”.

Will and Barry will be sharing with us the sheer energy and momentum for change that such a worldwide gathering of cycling experts can generate. Giving us a flavour of his reflections in advance on our public meeting, Will explains that “it seems that Asian countries have many of the same problems we see in Dublin and that our Northern European ‘leader countries’ are now offering a lot of advice on tackling the problems”. Will added that “the bike industry can do more to help the shift from car to bike trips - some companies in East Asia have been incredibly supportive in recent years”.

Attending events like Velo-city helps activists and advocates on the island of Ireland to keep in touch with cutting-edge ideas, benchmark ourselves against what’s happening overseas, and deepen contacts with campaigners from around the world.

We look forward to seeing you at our July meeting! Spread the word.