Here we go! Day 2 has been pretty amazing at Velo-city.  There was bicycle talk on everything from Vancouver's cycling credentials to how Adelaide and Vienna are striving to climbing the cycling "food-chain". Read over some of ECF's favourite moments! 

Kevin Mayne: ECF Development Director

Any Favourite Presentations? 

First off...San Francisco Bicycle Coalition – a really impressive advocacy organisation, but one that works with (and presented with) its city transportation department.

Stephen Yarwood, Lord Mayor of Adelaide. A mayor who used to be a town planner – a politician who really understands the way cities actually work and decided to switch professions because he was sick of talking to people who weren't listening. 

Favourite Quotes?

Far too many inspirational people for me today to name just a few. Check the twitter feed... #velocity2012

Any Inspiring Moments? 

Osaki Benjamin Chidoka – Corps Marshall and Chief Executive of the Nigerian Road Safety Corps. Just great to hear someone from that challenging culture talking about being a cyclist, and knowing he is operating at the highest level of government. His clear analysis of why developing countries need cycling at the press conference was really insightful.

Stephen Yarwood, Mayor of Adelaide Speaking

 Martti Tulenheimo: ECF's Urban Mobility Officer

Any favourite presentations? 

I'm going to put have to once again admit to my bike share obsession...My favorite presentation today was Mr. Yang Tang's full of information lecture "Bike-sharing systems in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou and their impact on travel behaviour". Motorization in China has happened so fast that the local city governments are faced with an urgent need to find ways to solve the problems of congestion, energy consumption, air pollution etc. Due to a long tradition of cycling, bike-sharing is now growing fast in China. As a matter of fact, the fastest in the whole world.

I also enjoyed very much Daniel Fuller's constructive criticism on the fact that the lack of a "natural enemy" can sometimes limit the reflection on methodology in the cycling world. If we forget to question conventional wisdom, we'll start holding 'half-truths' for fact. This self critical point from Fuller was very welcome.  ECF knows that we need science as a basis for enlightened decision-making.

Any Memorable Quotes?

"Instead of wasting our time talking about helmets, we should be talking about making cycling safe", Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood of the City of Adelaide.

"Design it for women and girls if you want them to use it", captured from the conference twitter feed today coming from the Women in Cycling Workshop.

Any Inspiring Moments? 

My most inspiring moment of the day was by far the outstanding improvisation that Olle Evenäs and his colleague Leif Jönsson from the City of Malmö showed, when there was no time left for the presentation Olle had prepared with a lot of thought and effort due to delays, as their presentation was the last one of the day. So instead, the clever Swedes pre-aired a video that is going to be officially launched later on and distributed a bag full of design bracelets containing the presentation on a USB stick. Good thinking!

Tomorrow I'm hoping to be able to participate the technical tour, as I'm the fifth person on the waiting list, thumbs up!

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Journalist from 'Calgary Herald' talking to ECF board member Morten Kerr

Benoit Blondel- ECF's Health and Safety Policy Officer

Any Favourite Presentations? 

There were so many great presentations. But the afternoon presentations were fascinating as they had a huge focus on Africa. It gave me a glimpse of the situation prevailing on Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria. I was reminded of the diversity of the problems that the cycling community is confronted with and the need to tackle unsustainable transport systems before it also becomes deeply rooted in developing countries. 

 Daniel Mourek: ECF Board Member

Any favourite presentations? 

The level of quality of presentations today almost exceeded yesterday.

All presentations by the host city of Vancouver were of great quality and the messages came across clearly: Bicycles make our cities better! We obviously need to start thinking about land use and density of our cities. Also, cycling hould be seen as extension of walking. I was impressed by the transport plan for
Vancouver 2040 wants to 2/3 of all trips done by sustainable transport. On cycling the vision is to make cyclists of Vancouver feel safer, comfortable, convenient and fun of people of all ages and abilities.

Here's an interesting link www.TalkVancouver.com