Exit interview: Outgoing CIE CEO Kevin Mayne speaks with CIN

Wednesday, 31 July 2024 Jonathon Harker

Set to retire later this year, Kevin Mayne is a name those in the European bicycle and eBike industry will remember. Here CIN catches a final interview with the CEO of Cycling Industries Europe, looking back on some landmark achievements…

With the European Cycling Declaration almost over the line, Kevin Mayne announced that 2024 would be his final year as CEO of European trade umbrella Cycling Industries Europe. Having served previously as the CEO at Cycling UK for over 14 years, Mayne’s focus expanded to cover Europe, first as the Development Director of the European Cyclist Federation and then, as the mission brief expanded, to take charge of the trade arm, all with the goal to open a meaningful political discourse on behalf of the European cycling industry. As anyone who has tried it in the UK will attest, creating a powerful, heard, cycling lobby is an enormous task that requires dogged persistence, diplomacy and hard work.

Signing off with the ink on the European Cycling Declaration now dry, Mayne’s legacy is one that sees EU member states with a solid point of reference for best practice framework on how to deploy funding and achieve the best outcomes when it comes to shifting modal share to active travel.

Mayne explains: “It is not a piece of legislation, yet a powerful, enabling document of reference for the EU Commission, Parliament and national Governments. This Declaration recognises cycling as one of the most sustainable, accessible, inclusive, low-cost, and healthy forms of transport and recreation, and its key importance for European society and the economy. It includes all the key areas of cycling ecosystem growth.

“Where it is groundbreaking is that before we never had an EU-wide statement that brings so many pro-cycling policies together as a standing reference for policymakers. It is a single framework for countries, regions, cities in terms of pro-cycling policy, funding and financing. We played a leading role in the stakeholder consultation and we are pretty happy with the Declaration’s 36 commitments.”

The 36 commitments intertwine and, if deployed according to the document, as good as guarantee a feedback loop of progressive change. The list includes but is not limited to policies such as:

Developing, adopting and strengthening cycling policies and strategies at all relevant levels of governance.
Significantly increasing safe and coherent cycling infrastructure across Europe, plus working towards creating a coherent cycling network in cities and improving connectivity between suburban and rural areas and city centres, including cycle highways.
Ensuring the provision of safe and secure bike parking spaces in urban and rural areas, including at railway and bus stations and mobility hubs. Plus supporting the deployment of charging points for eBikes in urban planning and in bike parking spaces inside and outside buildings.
Encouraging companies, organisations and institutions to promote cycling through mobility management schemes such as cycle to work incentives, the provision of company (e-)bikes, adequate cycle parking and facilities, and the use of bike-based delivery services.
Taking measures to enable better access to cycling for people with disabilities or those with reduced mobility.
Taking note of the possibility for Member States to apply reduced VAT rates for the supply, rental and repair of bikes and eBikes.
Ensuring that the rules on the safety requirements applicable to eBikes are substantial and promote their deployment.
Create conditions to increase the European production of a broad range of bicycles (including eBikes, speed pedelecs and bikes for people with disabilities) and their components, including access to materials, equipment and maintenance of a global level-playing field through existing EU trade defence instruments.
Making the sector more attractive and enabling important job-to-job transitions from other relevant industries.
Reflecting cycling in investments at all levels of governance.
Develop statistics on cycling and its infrastructure at local, national and EU levels, including cooperation between Member States and Eurostat to collect cycling data.

Believe it or not, that’s barely a third of the bullet points and so you can get a sense of the level of work that went into not only creating the proposed framework, but then getting it agreed upon by the European Commission. The timing was spot on too, coming to fruition as the EU lays down complementary frameworks including the Social Climate Fund, European Regional Development Fund, Cohesion Fund, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, Technical Support Instrument, and the Recovery and Resilience Facility. All of these can work cohesively with ambitions to develop active travel as part of goals towards climate, tourism, transport and plenty of other developments.

Unless you’re reading this online, there’s a good chance that you’ll have already sighed. Mayne admits: “Against that backdrop the UK does feel like an outlier, but there are also EU countries and cities that do very little to address changes in the way people move, and indeed some that are regressive when it comes to active transport. The current Italian government is a good example, and a city like Berlin has been taking out bike lanes, which seems like madness in the context of congestion, air quality and climate change.”

For those Governments still within the EU, change is now more accessible than ever, however, and Mayne says that for those who can brush aside the culture wars in transport, the goal is now wide open for fast, drastic and positive change, change that will happily reignite the bike industry’s upward momentum.

Kevin says on changing the narrative: “As far as I am concerned the key to the next five years in all countries is to keep maintaining the narrative of how popular and economically successful safe streets and cycling facilities actually are with the people who live and work in them. This is needed to counteract the populist theme that these measures are in some way ‘punishing’ those who believe driving can be unrestricted. If there was one change that we can make to support active travel it is to stop any policy hanging on to the myth that there are measures to support, fund or facilitate driving that actually work. They don’t. Whether it is road building, subsidies, electrification or automation of cars promoting cycling is still a more effective choice to get to the same goals.”

Now, for the meat on the bones of the promised land for us in the bike business sat here wondering when the tide will turn and we’ll start selling ever-increasing numbers of bicycles and eBikes. Is the 2030 goal of 30 million units sold in Europe annually still in reach? Almost, but naturally, the seismic shifts in the market of late have called for a revision.

“We have revised our target down slightly since 2021, but we are still forecasting an overall market of around 28 million units by 2030, with eBikes making up about half. The forecast reflects underperformance in delivering new infrastructure in some large countries, and perhaps a steeper decline in mechanical bikes than expected. We still don’t see the overall eBike versus bike sales threshold total going to 50% before 2030, mainly because the price points for eBikes are still much higher than the market norms in southern and eastern European countries. That makes eBike ownership challenging, so we are also pressing for a very substantial increase in eBike sharing for these countries, which will also help in cities where bike storage is an issue,” says Mayne.

Make no mistake though, while there has been a shakeout, tailwinds remain behind cycling and more than that, the industry is maturing, accessing new tools to sell bikes to new people and businesses too. There also remain plenty of outside funding sources from which the cycling industry can win big and Cycling Industries Europe, with or without Mayne’s help, will compete head-on with other sectors for with an increasingly powerful voice.

“An eBike is very affordable compared to an electric car, but the initial outlay is beyond people of limited means, so we have to get leasing and subscription much more widely available too. For example, the EU is currently launching an €85 billion fund called the Social Climate Fund which will be available to national governments from 2026. This
explicitly addresses families suffering transport and energy poverty, so we are competing with the e-car lobby to get a lot of this money into eBike and bike subsidies, making the product affordable to all,” Kevin says.

On political will alone, some countries are acting with urgency on issues surrounding cycling. France is singled out by Kevin as a pro-active mover in recent times. He says: “Their willingness to reallocate space and prioritise active transport is striking. But it isn’t just infrastructure, there has been a large-scale expansion of bike sharing, subsidies and premiums for bike purchase, a national anti-theft scheme, support for mapping and digital services.”

The entire chain, then, has been moving in the right direction, with policymakers standing up to a vocal minority and industry taking a pro-active approach to developing the market and addressing the reasons people may give for not cycling. Theft, undoubtedly, is a major bugbear of new and existing cyclists and so the national anti-theft efforts in particular stand out as a major piece of progress pushed individually, without outside influence.

As before, the UK remains an outlier, though not for lack of trying to change the record. Up against a stubborn Government [Ed’s note: this article was originally published pre-General Election, which may or may not affect this paragraph], whose swingeing budget cuts for active travel and pushing of conspiracy theories around supposed anti-motorist agendas have not helped create ambient conditions for organic growth.

Mayne says that in Cycling Industries Europe’s latest research, “the UK was the most male-orientated market of the eight we studied. But when we look at the reasons why people don’t cycle they are remarkably similar in each country – safety, busy roads, physical demands and weather fears. To take up cycling they need safe routes and secure parking at either end of a trip.”

Now that the European Cycling Declaration is in place, EU member states have to hand a deployable framework that details how to make change quickly, effectively, and correctly on the first go. That, hopes Kevin, lends well to a larger goal of getting 50 million more Europeans cycling by 2030, and another 50 million cycling more often.

Kevin signs out by saying: “When I am speaking to EU officials I have to remind them that the eBike is the universally available electrical mobility solution that is ready to deploy now. The technology is proven. Charging happens via conventional electricity networks at home and at the workplace; nothing new is required. We also have raw material consumption at about 0.5% of the demand for a car battery, so there’s also no need for new mining or supply capacity. The vehicle is too available affordably for personal ownership or as a shared vehicle. For business, it could theoretically provide logistics up to 500kg, or 1 tonne with a trailer.”

The answers to a lot of our problems, then, can be solved by our very industry. All being well, we’ve been sat on the goldmine that could just save the planet at the same time. There’s an optimistic view.

To conclude, here’s another from Kevin: “Overall I am very positive about where we are with cycling advocacy in the EU, we really have made some huge steps forward the last five years, culminating with the EU Declaration on Cycling signed recently.”