Dear members, friends and supporters of ECF,

As some of you may know this will be my last year-end message to our community after twelve years as your President. It is with pride and confidence that I step down from the post, so I would like to take the opportunity to look back at what we have achieved and look forward to an exciting future for cycling.

At the end of my presidency, please let me express two personal beliefs on advocacy. Roman philosopher Seneca said “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. For me that means every investment we made on content development was preparation for our advocacy goals – so whether the political mood swung towards jobs, economics, sustainability or tourism ECF was ready, even ahead of the mood. Secondly, I must also say that teamwork pays off, by board, staff, members and allies, none of our achievements would have been possible without your ever-present enthusiasm and commitment.

2017 showed those principles to great effect. We achieved the remarkable milestone bringing to life the EU Cycling Strategy, gathering approximately 1000 people to collaborate with the aim to increase cycling and bring added value to EU policy goals. What an incredible success this is, considering how in 2005 ECF was in a re-start situation, without an office in Brussels, but with our heads full of ideas and hearts set on very specific goals. What kept all of us going was passion for cycling and a belief in the possibility of contributing to the betterment of our world.

In some ways I think our modest start has been the secret of our success. We were open enough to know that cycling’s knowledge and objectives were scattered around a fragmented cycling world across Europe and the world. So we had to collaborate to discover “what works” in international advocacy and we had to invest in building knowledge to give ourselves the right evidence and objectives for our arguments. Together we overcame problems and discovered the new world, the amazing international world of cycling advocacy.

Where else have we come a long way? Well we can ride with Kings, as we saw at the Velo-city conference celebrated in Arnhem-Nijmegen this year. Recalling the increasing and numerous successes of Velo-city conferences with our growing Velo-city family, I can only say “what an incredible ride it has been”!

Based on our growing community of ECF members look what we have created. Cities for Cyclists has now become a cities and regions network, the World Cycling Alliance will become a free-standing legal entity in 2018 while EuroVelo, the Cycling Industry Club, our projects and our partnerships celebrate new milestones every year. In particular let me mention our academic community Scientists for Cycling who have inspired opportunities to work with concepts such as the “Cycling Economy” and “Active Mobility”. A new concept “Fusion Mobility” is now in development, integrating Active Mobility with future multimodality 

I also have great memories of 2017 for one of the communities closest to my heart. Working with our academic community Scientists for Cycling has brought me inspiration and an opportunity to work with great minds that have framed our advocacy work globally. Concepts such as the "Cycling Economy" and “Active Mobility” have become mainstream in our world now, but they had a beginning in this community.

2017 looks like the year that conceived a next step in our thinking, working out how we combine the values of Active Mobility with the connected, shared, electrically assisted mobility that will transform the 21^st Century. Fusion Mobility is an Active Mobility concept for future multimodality. Fusion Mobility takes cycling and links it to the connected systems of the future to unleash the full potential of a human centric approach contributing to smart and wise cities, to connected mobility for all. It is the basis on which we can develop a research agenda for the future and contribute to the development of cycling and new technologies.

Fusion Mobility and Active Mobility were my topics for some of my speaking highlights of 2017, COP23, Travel Demand Management Symposium at Taipei, EcoMobility World Congress in Kaohsing and the International Cycling Conference in Mannheim, celebrating the 200^th birthday of the bicycle.

Let me therefore turn my gaze to the future now, with many great perspectives for the next year already lined up. Velo-city conference will be hosted in South America for the first time, taking place in Rio de Janeiro in June, and certainly giving life to colorful and fruitful discussions and experiences. The development of EUCS was an important process that enables us to gather our strengths and continue to stress the importance a document like EUCS has for the future of sustainable and efficient mobility in the European Union.

We should also not forget the fundamental role of our members as well as a growing power and great potential of our networks. Only by strengthening our cooperation, involving all stakeholders as well as the public can we dream on advancing in or mission.  An important participatory process, “Vision 2030”, is currently taking place to define ECF’s values and strategies to better guide our future work. While we have already reached some of ECF’s 2020 goals, we must reflect on the things we didn’t achieve because there is always potential for improvement to keep us growing further on.

I look forward to meeting many of you at the ECF’s Annual General Meeting in Milan, where a new President will be elected and certainly bring new and fresh ideas to the work of ECF. There, I will happily hand over my thanks and good wishes to ECF and all involved. In advance let me say “thank you” in particular to Bernhard Ensink, our Secretary General for the very special relationship we have had, fighting always for best solutions as my companion, friend and sounding board. Also to the ECF Board Members and staff Directors who have been alongside me during my service as President, your professionalism, knowledge and commitment to cycling is inspirational.

I will now conclude by saying that change and progress are only possible with strong commitment and passion of the people. One thing is to dream about a different future, it is something altogether different to stand together, collaborate and work towards our shared goals-sometimes through disappointment and frustration, but never giving up. I strongly believe we are on the right path and although there will be walls to climb and new obstacles to overcome, we will continue to improve and progress.

I would like to thank you now, to each and every one of you, for everything you contributed to the work of ECF and cycling in these exceptional 12 years, for your excellent work and your passion and determination. Thanks to all of you, I can only look towards 2018 with positive spirit and a curiosity about our future achievements. May the New Year bring joy and happiness to all of you and may the 2018 be another great year for cyclists around the world.

Manfred Neun,

ECF & WCA President

• To read Manfred’s farewell letter to ECF members click here
• For the position of the ECF Board on the Presidency transition click here.

   

The details about the election of a new ECF President will be published by the ECF Board in early January.