EuroVelo stars at the largest Velo-city ever
Velo-city is the best-known global conference about cycling, with an important focus on cities and urban mobility. Under the theme flag ‘Connecting through cycling’, Velo-citizens met again in Ghent, Belgium, from 18 to 21 June. It was an extremely successful edition, with 1,600+ delegates from 60+ countries and more than 80 sessions and 400 speakers – making it the largest Velo-city ever!
The host city of Ghent is known for its ambitious mobility plans that strongly focus on cycling, which significantly improved the quality of life. A university town famous for its annual Festivities, it was the stage of a truly memorable bike parade, with stunning canal views and fun animations.
Ghent is not crossed by any EuroVelo routes, but it is very well connected to the four routes crossing Belgian territory via an extensive regional network of recreational and commuter routes, as well as cycle highways! After all, EuroVelo is the backbone of the other national, regional, and local cycle route networks. Delegates who cycled to Ghent could make sure to find their preferred access to the city thanks to useful tips in an article published both on the Velo-city blog and the EuroVelo website.
The exhibition
The Velo-city exhibition in Floraliënhal showcased the latest innovations in cycling mobility and EuroVelo was right in the middle of the action, of course! As every year, the European Cyclists’ Federation team shared information about EuroVelo, connected with cycling professionals and distributed EuroVelo maps – always a big hit – at the booth.
The ECF booth was buzzing with people who took part in the EuroVelo x Brompton Scavenger Hunt: after getting clues all around the exhibition, they had to guess the EuroVelo route of the day for a chance to win a beautiful, bespoke Brompton foldable bicycle designed by a Ghent artist.
The sessions
The programme of Velo-city 2024 was organised around the theme ‘Connecting through cycling’. The conference covered all aspects of cycling, especially in the urban context and in developing solutions, learning from each other, and debating hot topics in the cycling world.
Recreational cycling is less of a focus, especially considering that urban planners and city representatives make up a good part of the delegates. However, there were very interesting and well-attended sessions about rural cycling, recreational events promoting cycling practice, and funding to develop cycle routes.
In a very popular session about rural cycling with ECF Board member Camille Thomé and EuroVelo Council member Pinar Pinzuti, EuroVelo was brought as an example of a network benefitting the rural economy and effectively connecting urban and rural areas.
In a workshop about European projects and funding related to cycling, successful partnerships for EU-funded projects to develop EuroVelo 10 – Baltic Sea Cycle Route in the South Baltic region were presented as a good practice. Magda Rzucidło-Leszczyna of the Pomorskie Tourism Board (Poland) led a round table about Interreg projects, explaining the whole project pipeline to develop EuroVelo 10 with five different Interreg applications from 2016 to today.
A session that fit the advocacy aims of ECF and the EuroVelo Management Team focused on the work of the UNECE Group of Experts on Cycling Infrastructure, which concluded recently. The group listed types of infrastructure and connections between cycle route networks at different scales, and worked on designing a framework for cycling infrastructure and elaborated a series of recommendations. EuroVelo and Cycling Tourism Director Agathe Daudibon represented ECF in this session.
Cycling professionals who are interested in EuroVelo-themed sessions and cycling tourism, more specifically, are invited to consult the programme and sign up for the EuroVelo & Cycling Tourism Conference, a dedicated annual event taking place in Viborg, Denmark from 23 to 25 September 2024.
See you next year in Gdańsk!
The 2025 edition of Velo-city is planned for 10-13 June in Gdańsk, Poland. No less than three EuroVelo routes cross the city, and Gdańsk is very proud of it – when the city representative mentioned them during the closing ceremony, EuroVelo team members visibly rejoiced. We look forward to Velo-city 2025 and to cycling along EuroVelo 9 – Baltic-Adriatic, EuroVelo 10 – Baltic Sea Cycle Route and EuroVelo 13 – Iron Curtain Trail!
Written by Jessica Casagrande