21 Mar 2023

This year, CIE Members' Day took place on 8th March at Scotland Europa in the heart of EU institutions. We'd like to give a warm thank you to Edinburgh Napier University for hosting the event! Regardless of the challenging start, from train strikes to an unexcpected snow flurry causing severe delays for our members, we had a full house and the atmosphere was upbeat throughout the day. After the introduction speech by CIE CEO Kevin Mayne and the presentation of CIE Business Impact and Consumer Survey results by Marc Anderman from Sport Insights, members had the opportunity to get updates and latest insights from CIE Expert Groups. Here are some of the key takeaways from the day:

Women in Cycling

Women In Cycling is putting a spotlight on recruitment with an aim to attract more women working in the cycling industry, to get more women in leadership roles and to ensure the diverse experiences of women are taken into account and represented in decision making bodies, projects and all processes that affect the sector.

At CIE Members’ Day we had three pop up talks from inspirational speakers: Leury Kerpen from Thun talked about diversity, why it is important and how cycling industry could benefit from a wider diversity group.  Sally Middlemiss, Bicycle Association of Great Britain presented a new diversity pledge, survey and company audit that have been recently developed by BA. The survey will be launched in mid-March in collaboration with CIE and Women In Cycling. Caroline van Renterghem of Fifteen told us about French WIC initiative and invited everyone to join a video project showcasing different careers women have in the cycling industry in order to attract more women on board. Interested? Contact us to learn more. 

Market Impact & Intelligence

Market research experts from over 30 companies and associations received the very latest briefings on cycling levels across Europe including new consumer research commissioned by CIE, travel analysis by the EU statistical service and field reports from counters and bike sharing. All trends showed that riding levels across key markets remain extremely positive, with growth in both daily and leisure riding.

In an interactive workshop format delegates were able to share insights and understanding from the reports, strengthening their knowledge for their own markets.

Bike Share

World’s leading bike share experts gathered to prepare next advocacy action to make sure bike share will be featured in the EU Cycling Declaration’s measures and funding. Bike share is important in helping to deliver the EU’s green transition and climate goals by enabling affordable access to bikes for everyone and in decarbonising our cities.

The experts are also finalising a CIE led benchmarking study covering bike sharing in 150 cities and will be launching quarterly webinars starting in April. Moreover, a session on «How to make a successful bike sharing scheme?» at Velo-city is being prepared, this time in a form of an interactive round table between cities and operators. Cities will have an opportunity to ask questions directly from bike sharing providers, specific topics will cover financing, sustainability, and accessibility.

CSR & Sustainability

After the success of the first industry-wide pledge on packaging, cycling industry sustainability experts are busy preparing an industry-wide climate pledge together with step-by-step guidelines, planned to be launched at Eurobike 2023. The group has also conducted a survey on Ebike Battery and Electrical Components Collection Systems in EU member states and a Survey on Supply Chain with a focus on critical raw materials. Another important work of the group has been assessing recyclability and repairability of each bike component with an aim to see if industry wide action is needed to help enhancing circularity. Members of the Sustainability Expert Group also get regular briefings on latest EU regulations such as packaging and waste, eco-design of products and Critical Raw Materials. The group invites regular external speakers to share insights, this time Benjamin Barrett gave an update on UCI sustainability work and Anke Schäffner of ZIV told us about the German Sustainability Code (German Sustainability Reporting Standard).

Cargo Bikes & Cycle Logistics

Making the most of such a large group, and on the back of the major EU political support for cycling, the CBCLEG broke into smaller working groups to deep dive into proposed actions and commitments the group wants the European Commission to support in its future cycling strategy. Interactive group work also gave the group the opportunity to have open discussions with those they only see online. A number of new initiatives were put forward in addition to those that had been tabled in the group’s previous meeting at the end of 2022. A road map to promote the proposed measures will be drawn up for the group’s next meeting.

ITS & MaaS

Connected bike and data experts had a briefing from Suzanne Hoadley, Senior Manager at Polis and Coordinator of their Traffic Efficiency Working Group. Suzanne gave an update on some of the EU’s latest policy developments in the MMTIS and MDMS regulations, which members of the group had contributed to in the latter part of 2022, and briefed the group on how the revised RTTI Delegated Regulation may impact cycling. She spoke about the lack of good quality cycling data and emphasised how cities are looking with greater urgency to procure this data to help in developing pro-cycling and active mobility policy.

Cycling Innovation Network

Opportunities for cycling innovators to find funding, support and expertise are plentiful but finding the right schemes is a challenge and applying for help can be a daunting process. The Cycling Innovation Network meeting gave the floor to business angel Niek van Exel, who founded Bloomit to invest in electric mobility “beyond the spreadsheet doctrine” with a “360° degree” approach to supporting innovators. His presentation was followed up by innovation expert Oliver Kozak, a lifelong cycling advocate and Senior Advisor at the EISMEA, an EU agency dedicated to supporting innovators and SMEs via key funding programmes like the European Innovation Council.

Supply Chain Project

The cycling industry’s global supply chain has been under severe pressure over the past few years and new challenges linked to electrification and scarcity of key raw materials needs to be anticipated. For the first time, CIE members with a stake in purchasing or supply convened to discuss the impact of future EU legislation and the role of collaboration across the industry to prevent bottlenecks, bullwhip effects and delivery delays.

Building upon the results of research and surveys, discussions raised the possibility to source raw materials in a coordinated way and develop an industrial data space in which key supply chain indicators and definitions would help make companies make the best-informed choices. Guest speaker Famke Schaap shared her experience supporting other industries manage supply chains and enhance sustainable sourcing of products and raw materials.

Mountain Bike Initiative

Developing a toolkit to help companies and advocates speak out for mountain biking across Europe, uniting IMBA Europe’s expertise in advocacy and companies knowledge on promotion and marketing. New research confirms that mountain biking still has significant growth potential, especially through greater diversity which enables more women and younger people to take up the sport. 

Further face-to-face meetings at the IMBA Summit and the 2023 World Cycling Championships in Scotland are planned.

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