We’re thrilled to present you our first news round-up from the Velo-city 2015 conference in Nantes, France!

To keep you up-to-date on all the most relevant news from the world’s largest cycling convention, we will be writing you one news section with daily highlights each day for the rest of the week. This is a news digest – click the on the links if you’re looking to follow the action more closely or on our special Live Page and, naturally, on social media.

ECF has several networks that work to pomote cycling in their own areas of expertese. On the opening day of the Velo-city we organised seven different network side events that each gathered the members of its respective network to discuss, learn and exchange ideas and experiences in their fields. Altogether more than 200 people attended these events. This first Velo-city round-up includes news from the ECF side events.

Here is a selection of what’s been happening at #velocity15 on Tuesday, 2 June:

• Charter of Nantes
• Scientists for Cycling Annual Colloquium
• Cities for Cyclists Annual Meeting
• Pro E-bike Meeting
• Create and Manage a CycleLogistics business
• EuroVelo National Coordinators Meeting
• Organisational Developement Workshop: Lead by example!
• National Coordinators Meeting

 Charter of Nantes

During a reception at the City Hall, ECF president Manfred Neun and Nantes Mayor Johanna Rolland signed the Charter of Nantes. This charter addresses the global stakeholders in climate change and especially the COP21 summit in Paris later this year.

Scientists for Cycling Annual Colloquium 

Scientists for Cycling is a global netwok of scientists and experts from many different academic disciplines worldwide who want to contribute to improving and to increasing cycling.

The Annual colloquium of the Scientists for Cycling network, co-organised by the European Cyclists’ Federation and the French network GERI-Vélo (IFSTTAR), focused on new developments in cycling research. Bringing together academics from numerous disciplines, the colloquium allowed participants to discover and discuss the latest research results in different areas.

Cities for Cyclists Annual Meeting

ECF's Cities for Cyclists Network is a global network of cities which are working to promote bicycle use in urban areas. The networks aim is to put cycling at the centre of urban planning and political thinking in cities around the globe by inspiring and catalyzing more cities to take concrete action in promoting cycling.

In the Annual meeting the network's forerunner cycling cities from around the world got together to take a closer look at the mobility policy of this year’s Velo-city host, Nantes, and exchanged best-practice with other Network members to improve their own cycling strategies.

Replacing motor vehicles with bikes and cargo bikes saves money, time, space, and has many other benefits. It's proven and going mainstream across Europe. On 2. June Experts presented a Pro E-Bike workshop for businesses, decision-makers, and fleet managers before the opening of Velo-city 2015 in Nantes.

The workshop gave examples on how much existing businesses have already reduced their costs by switching to E-bikes. During the wokshop participants also had the chance to use the Pro E-Bike SIM Tool to calculate the amount of savings they would have by replacing cars, vans, scooters withE-bikes intheir fleet.

Create and Manage a CycleLogistics business

Research has recently shown that 25% of trips transporting goods in urban centres could easily be done by cargo bikes instead of motor vehicles. This workshop was aimed at people and businesses that wish to develop their cycle logistic capacities.

EuroVelo National Coordinators Meeting

EuroVelo is a network of high-quality cycling routes currently comprising of 14 routes that connect the whole continent. The routs are used by tourists as well as locals making their daily journeys.

The annual meeting held on 2. June marked the 20th anniversary year of the network and presented an opportunity for the National EuroVelo Coordination Centers and Coordinators to network with each other and share experiences and best practice from their countries. ECF also presented the latest developments in the central coordination of the EuroVelo network.

Organisational Developement Workshop: Lead by example! 

Being a part of the community means sharing with others, providing and receiving knowledge, supporting and feeling supported. In this years Organisational Development, ECF asked its members to focus on what they do best and share their knowledge with others. All participants were encouraged to be a leader and a learner at the same time. During the workshop we heard many examples of success stories ranging from organisational change to advocacy victories.

The Organisational Development workshop signals the beginning of a year-long support system among ECF members!

National Coordinators Meeting

In the Transport Health Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP) Paris Ministerial Declaration adopted in Paris in April 2014, the 56 THE PEP Member States decided as one of the priority areas of action to develop a pan-European master plan for cycling promotion. To this end, the new THE PEP Partnership on cycling was launched to develop this Master Plan. This Partnership met for the 4^th time in Nantes on 2. June.