Mike and Paul have just spent a week at Velo-City 2010 conference in Copenhagen.
We were exhibiting and attended lots of the presentations
Please see embedded slide show
If you are a cyclist, visiting Copenhagen is a bit like dying and going to heaven.
Cycling seems to be the default means of transport in the city.
There are hundreds of bikes, everywhere.
You can take bikes on all trains all of the time and the wide roads usually have dedicated cycle paths either side of them.
Velo City is an international conference mainly concerned with promoting the use of bicycles as transport and for leisure.
Delegates range for city transportation planners from around the world to small ngo's promoting cycling in the third world
and lots of Consultants of all persuasions.
One prominent feature this year was the large number of big stands from companies providing public bike hire schemes, such as the one shortly to be launched in London.
One of the city planners we talked to said it felt now that if you wanted to be seen as a city that takes cycling seriously then you had to have a public bike hire scheme.
The only area we felt that the UK was ahead in was Cycle Training and there was lots of interest in what we were doing.
It was great to speak to other practitioners from around the world, we spoke to instructors from Portugal, Iceland, France, Denmark, Turkey, Spain, USA and the Netherlands.
We were very impressed by the instructors from Denmark we met.
On the last day i was there the conference organised a bike parade through the city. Nearly all the delegates participated and we were accompanied by the local Danish cyclists and performers. It was a bit like critical mass, but without the politics. See the slide show for some pics
Interestedly it was not the car drivers that were upset at being delayed by the procession but the commuters wanting to cycle home.
Cyclists really do own the streets in Denmark.
Some pictures from Velo city 2010 in Copenhagen
http://www.welcomehome.dk/Default.aspx?ID=709
Paul Lowe June 26th, 2010 10:57:31