Dear member,

At the time of writing (morning of 8 June), VeloMai 2018 is well over halfway through and we are heading towards the final phase of our collective challenge to cycle to the moon. At the time of writing (afternoon of 4 June) I see that we (about 2 479 participating cyclists from the different institutions) have already ridden about 220,000 kms, which is really impressive. However, at this rate, we will just about manage to go into orbit rather than land on the moon (reaching about 360,000 kms instead of our target of about 385,000 kms). So near and yet so far!

So, either we need to up our game and pedal more, or we should rope in a few more cyclists!

I would tend to favour the 2^nd option. If we could increase the number of cyclists by about 10 % we could probably achieve the objective without putting any further pressure on existing participants… Part of the objective is to encourage newcomers to try out cycling. So encouraging those who still hesitate could be one way to make up some extra kms. Please try to support people you know in this situation. (They can sign up for safe cycling training as in VeloMai programme). Furthermore, it seems clear that a number of people who actually cycle to work regularly are not yet encoding their rides and kms, for various reasons – lack of time, don’t understand where/how to encode, consider Velomai just for new cyclists etc etc.

So if you are regularly cycling to work and/or to meetings and not yet encoding, please do so!

Or if you know someone in your sector, unit, directorate, DG, Intitution, who cycles but is apparently not encoding, please check with them. In some cases, they could be encoding but may have opted not to be visible to others. That’s OK – their rides and kms cycled still count. However, if they are not encoding perhaps you could encourage/help them to do so? They don’t have to do this, but it would be nice if they could at least help us to reach the collective objective.

Please also note that all rides/kms cycled etc. can be encoded retroactively, going back to day 1 of the challenge (18 May). This should not be too difficult for regular cyclists who pedal the same commute every day!

Furthermore, you can also enter kms cycled at weekend events featured in the programme such as the critical mass on Saturday 26 May (17.5 kms) and the BXL Tour on 17 June ( 40 kms).

So this is the VeloMai edition of our Newsletter! The updated official programme is attached again for information. We include some reports of past events- the critical mass bike ride, Emas conference on sustainable mobility, EUCG conference on ” the air that we breathe”, Medical service conference on the health benefits of cycling”, DG SANTE “basic bike tune up”, DG EAC breakfast etc. etc.

But there is still so much to see and do before the campaign ends at 12.00 in the Berlaymont on 20 June!

It’s not yet in the official VeloMai programme but also worth a visit is a trip to the cafeteria in the Charlemagne Building! On the way there you can admire the Cyclists’ photo exhibition on the walls. (see article below) I’m taking my coffee there tomorrow!

I hope to see you at some, if not all, of these events!

Paul Murphy, EUCG President

[Appeared at the beginning of the Newsletter May 2018 – full newsletter sent in e-mail to the membership]