BIG INTERVIEW
“So that’s something that we’re really proud of, and increasingly, we’re going to try and connect our campaigns to our programs on the ground to try and help people see these different images of cycling and different experiences of cycling, to help encourage, perhaps people who didn’t think cycling was for them to have a go, basically, so kind of change those perceptions.”
Five-year plan Since the awards, the organisation has also released its first-ever ‘five-year plan’. This showed a shift from focusing primarily on numbers of people cycling, to a vision of allowing people to live “healthier, happier and greener lives through cycling.” “I’s quite an ambitious strategy, and it has a 10 year sense of direction, but that’s because the thing we wanted to set ourselves was to build positive public perceptions of cycling. We want to see a real shift in the way that we think about cycling across the country, which is incredibly challenging, but similar to what they managed to achieve without consciously setting out to do it in the Netherlands in the 1970s.” “I think a huge part of this work will be about building partnerships with different partners. Perhaps not the usual suspects within the active travel world, but maybe within
24 | August 2024
industry, perhaps beyond the cycling industry to a degree. Just to be able to reach people who don’t currently cycle, to help them to think about cycling as being beneficial to them.” So how can the industry help Cycling UK achieve these goals? By offering bikes to suit more people, as a start. Electric bikes are a growing market for a reason, and Mitchell has seen first-hand how they can benefit a wider demographic on their cycling journey. “We’re in the business of expanding cycling. So we want more people to cycle, and more people to love cycling in the way that we do. And we know that the industry feels the same about that, because who wouldn’t want an expanded market with more people who want to buy bikes, but also who want to buy all of the things associated with bikes? “And we also know that we’ve got really challenging objectives, and it’s the sort of thing that we can’t do on our own. So we really want to do this in partnership, hopefully with some of our friends in the industry too. “I think there’s a great opportunity there for the industry, in the expansion of e-bikes in particular, but more broadly, in us all having a much more positive experience of cycling. So hopefully more and more people will feel like this is a great option, and think, ‘why am I not doing this?’ There’s no reason not to, really.”
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