Episode 7: Kevin Mayne

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Phil Latz: Welcome to the Micro Mobility Report podcast, where we discuss how we can all go further with less. I'm Phil Latz, publisher of the Micro Mobility Report.

Irene McAleese: And I'm Irene McAleese, co founder of SeeSense.

Phil Latz: And today we're talking with Kevin Mayne,CEO of Cycle Industries Europe. Hello,

Kevin Mayne: Hi, good to see you. Or hear you, I should say, podcast terms.

Irene McAleese: Hello, Kevin. Really great to be speaking with you today. So, I'm going to kick off with some questions and I know that, you had quite an extensive global corporate career for multinationals in the food and beverage industry before becoming the CEO of Cycling UK. So we wanted to just step back to that and I guess understand that transition because I expect that that involved, a large pay cut.

When you made [00:01:00] that shift out of, out of working for the multinationals, what motivated you to make this dramatic career

Kevin Mayne: change

Yeah, I think we'd even go back even further because my, you know, I grew up in a household where there were two certainties in life. One was cycling and the other was politics. My parents were actively involved in local government and political activity and even involved, when they were involved in cycling, my father ended up on various national kind of committees and governing bodies, that kind of stuff.

So that was actually my grassroots and running stuff around cycling was what my family did. So when I graduated from university and I was looking at what my kind of strengths and weaknesses were, I had no industrial exposure at all. But it was pointed out to me that this thing was probably called management. So my skill set was managing stuff. And, basically I was fortunate enough to get onto a management training [00:02:00] course with what was, it's the Cadbury Schweppes group. and basically had a, I'm going to say this is an awful cliche, but a relatively fast track through Cadbury Schweppes and then on to other food drink companies.

which I did for 14 years. In the background, I was still racing bikes, riding bikes. In the background, my family was still involved in local cycling, and in various kind of committees, and racing, and dah dee dah dee dah. So, it never quite went away, but it was, it's always in the kind of territory of hobby.

And then a job comes up to be what was then called the director of what is now Cycling UK. And, we looked. And we talked as a family and we looked again. And my wife actually said, isn't that the kind of job you do when you retire? And I said, no, because once you're in that space. You don't go out. So if I don't go now, someone's going to fill that job for 25 years.

So, yeah, I probably dropped to a third of pay, the company car went, the [00:03:00] health care went, the, we had to relocate from somewhere to the most expensive place in England as well. you don't do this for money. You do it because you believe in it and you're doing it because it's, it's part of, A huge opportunity in terms of my life journey that I was fortunate to have in 1997.

Irene McAleese: Yeah, yeah. So you, you're obviously, yeah, following your passion there and presumably felt you could make a good contribution to the role. what did you bring from that corporate career though when you came into, you know, working for a charity like Cycling UK?

Kevin Mayne: from the feedback I got, the first thing I did was scare the hell out of a few people. Because, we're talking about a 120 year old organization. But they wanted a modernizer. They, they felt they were struggling. There were other initiatives in the UK that were beginning to get traction, like, Sustrans and other movements, and there was a concern that what was then CTC [00:04:00] had perhaps lost.

Its, I don't know, lost its mojo a bit. And, you know, they were bold enough to say, we're gonna get someone completely different. But again, it works because yes, I could bring the management competencies. But my feet is just so deeply embedded in grassroots cycling. I could go for a ride with the members. I could turn up on the kind of the rallies.

I could could be there. You know, we could chat bikes forever. at my interview, one of the guys actually said, Oh yeah, I raced against your dad last week. he made it easier transition. But there was a lot to do. I mean, there really was a need. You'll know better than anyone, Irene, I mean, being a sort of cycling lobby in the UK is tough.

You know, Australia shares many of those challenges to come up from kind of 1 percent mode share and to come up from cycling essentially being a sport. so we had a lot to build on.

Irene McAleese: a constant theme of your advocacy career has been successfully building [00:05:00] membership, building capacity, building resources of the organizations you've been part of. Cycling UK, then you went on to the European Cyclists Federation and then Cycle Industries in Europe. What are your keys for building advocacy organizations?

Kevin Mayne: we've all got one ultimate interest, which is more people riding bikes. That gets dreadfully lost from time to time. I mean, factional warfare. I mean, we used to say if you get two cyclists, that's a minimum three opinions. And then, and then they form four associations to fight about the three opinions.

And, and, and, and so a lot of that energy was dissipated in duplication and, you know, even, you know, lack of resources because everybody was too small. And I think. I was fortunate to be in a period where our colleagues at British Cycling began to get lottery funding and began to build something very special.

Our colleagues at [00:06:00] Sustrans had funding for the National Lottery and were able to start building the National Cycle Network. And when I first came in, there was almost a sense, even in Cycling UK or CTC, that you should kind of, this was a, this was an occasion to kind of go to war. And I actually turned and I said, wait a minute, if each of those initiatives creates a million cyclists, what are we going to complain about?

And so I think absolute fixation on, we're all too thinly spread to, to dissipate our resources. And so I've been a bridge builder and an alliance builder instinctively. and I almost think it comes to the managerialism. I hate waste. I loathe and detest waste and human waste in terms of people dispersing energy on internecine commentary is, is.

Phil Latz: My biggest frustration probably of all. Very interesting. Interesting. So. I know you haven't been in Australia for a long time, but what would your advice be to Australian [00:07:00] advocacy organizations, be that local level, state level and federal levels, in particular, those who are struggling to pay their bills, maybe struggling to hire the people they need, to progress their goals.

Kevin Mayne: I don't want to be arrogant enough to, to impose and I haven't been in Australia since 2014. I did meet a few of the organizations there and I'm hoping to catch up with a few people on a trip, forthcoming trip to Australia over the Christmas period and into the year 2025. But um, you know, the absolute first is, you know, do not waste anything. You know, mergers and alliances and collaborations and partnerships are a better way of spreading your resources of bringing in experts here now in the European space. You know, we're, we're involved in the intelligent transport world because connected cycling is not huge, but there's so many really smart people in that space. And many of them are on our team. [00:08:00] They ride bikes for weekends. They ride, you know, they, they believe cycling is part of the mix. we've brought alliances with city associations. and above all else, you know, you've got to be willing to make alliances with the people you're actually lobbying. it's one of the fundamental principles of political science in that you do not have breakthroughs without coalitions.

If you cannot build alliances of left, of right, of business, you know, of green or whatever your field is, you need to find people who are willing to do these kind of alliances. And I think it's particularly true at the moment globally, where the perception of a kind of hard left right split and a kind of a populism And the population is, is not conducive to cycling, it's somehow sort of linked to automotive aspiration.

I mean, that is true, but equally we can point to cities and regions and governments that come [00:09:00] from, populist stunts that have invested in cycling. where I am now, Flanders is remarkable. The right wing populist party spent, just spent 400 million from its funding budgets on cycling. So it is being willing to to work with the people who want to promote cycling.

Irene McAleese: so you are probably best known Kevin for your most recent five year. role as the founding CEO of Cycling Industries Europe. fantastic organization and very proud of myself for, for SeeSense, to being one of the, to being on, on the journey or one of the companies on the journey with you on that.

could you, could you share with our audience what you think might be two or three of your biggest achievements during this time?

Kevin Mayne: Yeah, I mean where we sit today. I think I can point to three things. We're particularly targeting the European Union, which most people will, certainly Australians will know [00:10:00] if you take a kind of federal analogy. The difference is being that there are 27 member states. So the biggest contribution to cycling is always going to be member states and is always going to be member state money and cities.

But the European Union has the ability to kind of cut across and set the tone. And also to offer a lot of stimulation funding. where it might be 20, 30 percent of a program. And then the city of the region's got to put in the rest. When we started putting industry funding into the funding into the European lobby, the first European budget I was involved in had about 600 million for cycling, which sounds amazing, but spread over 350 million people.

It's, it's a drop in the ocean. And that was nearly all spent in just four countries. We just had the latest report, the current budget spending 4. 7 billion. And from the COVID recovery funding, we secured another 2 billion. So, you know, you can see, yeah, 6, 7 [00:11:00] billion euros, all of which has to be co funded.

but those 10 fold and I mean, bluntly for our members, that's a thousand to one return on investment. Okay. Not every one of those euros goes back into a new bike immediately, but it's a thousand to one public sector funding. So that's the cornerstone of what we're doing. We're actually leveraging public sector funding.and I think the second thing that we really learned, we tried to do this in 2017 when I was at European Cyclist Federation and we had a good broad coalition, but the industry part of that was particularly weak. We were limited by what the industry was prepared or able to say at the time. post COVID. No industry, no strategy. So we ended up with a European cycling strategy with a very clear commitment from industry, but also commitment to industry. But the deal breaker was that we say we can create a million jobs if that [00:12:00] program goes through. So European Declaration on Cycling signed by all the principal institutions at the European level is the next, you know, the money is in a pipeline.

The declaration is an opportunity, yes, more money, but also better policy and better structures. And then for the first time ever, we are in the European industrial strategy, which means we now sit with automotive, aviation, rail and shipping as a recognized industrial sector. And again, we're there, pretty much many people in trench views in that environment just didn't want cycling there, couldn't be bothered.

Yeah, this is dip squeak stuff. But when you come outta the pandemic car, jobs are down, public transport jobs are down. everybody else's trajectory is down and really struggling. And there's one sector going, yeah, no, we think we're gonna create a billion jobs. We believe in we're gonna create a billion jobs. We, our [00:13:00] arguments are untouchable. so we're in the industrial strategy now as a contributor. We've yet to realize what that means. You know, we've yet to see firm policies, we've yet to see, say, for example, research funding, or premiums, or And we've got a lot of work to do on the secondary part of the market.

You know, recycling, recovery, raw materials. but you can't do that if you're not there.

Irene McAleese: The EU is an amazing place because you've got so many professional lobbyists there. The car industry certainly invests in this stuff, right? and you know, without cycling's voice at the table and talking about, I think, as you said, the key point being the jobs that the industry is creating, that really helps to get their attention,

Kevin Mayne: Yeah.

Irene McAleese: Being able to put

Kevin Mayne: And that's back to, I mean, we've been, we've done better and better and better in the mobility space. There is an understanding and it's bottom up because it comes above all from cities. Cities cannot live with congestion. They cannot live [00:14:00] with air pollution. They cannot live with the, you know, the transport poverty.

And, you know, we arrive at a right time with products like the e bike. We arrive at the right time with the cargo bike. So technologically we're, a little bit sexier. Yeah, it's tougher with the analog bike, but it is helped to be a bit more politically sexy with the products we created. But bottom up, the bike has its space.

But yeah, as I say, industrially, what we've really done, I think it's the CIE achievement, is open that additional door. And this is an economic union, you know, it has many things, the European Union, it could do defense and forest policy and energy and stuff like that, but it's, it's DNA is an economic union in a single market. And so in the 30, 40, 000 lobbyists around me here in Brussels, there are a preponderance of industrial lobbyists and the industrial lobbyists get in [00:15:00] rooms that nobody else gets in. And so we just had to learn how to do that.

Irene McAleese: Yeah. Yeah.it's a really huge achievement. What about the, the, you mentioned the European Declaration of Cycling. Could you expand a little bit more on that? Cause I think that is also extremely significant and, and really a fantastic achievement. I'd like to people know a little bit more about that. To you to unpack what is actually in that for cycling.

I know that cycling data is in there, for example, and that's never really been talked about

Kevin Mayne: if you'd have missed the data point, I'd have been disappointed.

Come on, you know, hello.

Irene McAleese: Hello. I've gotta put that in, in data innovation. It's wonderful to see,

Kevin Mayne: at the moment, it's a policy statement. It's not a legislation. It's not a budget. But it's given cycling a visibility and a frame. And the one thing it's done is get a kind of consensus around what you can do. [00:16:00] If you're a government, if you're an industry, if you are the European Union.

There's actually 36 action points. It's really comprehensive. There's a couple in there that were put in on people's favorite subjects, where I might go, well, that's not so important. But if you had to write. a shopping list for things you should do. We and our colleagues, European Society Federation, the other lobby groups, pretty well saying that's as good as it gets.

Because we have, you know, a parliament, we have the civil service, we have the 27 member states who all said, okay, that's the list. And now with that list in place, but that you can imagine what's there, you know, infrastructure is there. Diversity and encouraging use by all walks of society and all kind of people who can cycle.

Yes, there's an industrial chapter about this, this kind of, you know, there's a whole section on data, as you say, saying if you can't measure it, this, this policy has no value. [00:17:00] So measurement is in there and that's what's driving the data chapter. Safety is in there. So we work our way through the 36 action points.

The question then becomes, okay, which we might pick, say, 10. And go, right, let's get these 10 done. And, you know, number one would be let's get Member States and the European Commission spending more money on infrastructure. Yes. Let's get more tax breaks and more fiscal support for rolling out e bikes and cargo bikes to make them more affordable in the low income areas of Europe. Because it's brilliant, but it's, You know, it's a Northwest Europe affluent corner story. It's not a Southeast Europe less affluent story yet. So spreading the success is in there as well. so yeah, we're just, we have a manifesto. It's like in this Europe, which has got 10 points from the 36. [00:18:00] So look, if we do these 10, let's, let's make that the next five year plan.

Irene McAleese: funding. doesn't get given to us, doesn't get given to the industry. Maybe we get research funding, we get certain kind of programs, but they are, they're important in terms of running the organization and helping the industry move forward. But the big numbers are always in the countries and the regions and the cities, you know, it's where stuff happens.

Kevin Mayne: And whether it's more bike lanes built or whether it's, you know, Tax is not a European competence. Tax falls to individual member states. Or, you know, even if we have to set up a circular economy to recover tyres and aluminium and steel and batteries. Those are national competences. So, but getting those to happen, again, the declaration is a useful Bible.

But, you know, we will have a country, I'm not going to name it, one country will swing to the left and it will decide to do buses. [00:19:00] Another country will swing to the right and it'll decide to do business support at any time. We need a toolkit that says when the political wind is blowing in a certain direction, how can we place cycling on the agenda?

And I think that's

Irene McAleese: Right.

Kevin Mayne: that's what I believe is the new skill set.cycling advocates have to be able to be political scientists more than we ever

did. It's not where we came from. but you know, I, I can do this from passion, but passion can be ineffective. You're just blowing against a gale. If you understand what the politicians need and you understand this, and there may well be a period where you step back and you have to say, look, it's not going to happen. but equally there's a demand for this. in this city, this region, this country, this European program. Let's do [00:20:00] this.

Irene McAleese: Okay. So it's a really useful lever to have. You've got that there and it's documented

Kevin Mayne: Yeah, that's a starting

Irene McAleese: helps you in that changing starting

Kevin Mayne: And the fact is comprehensive does mean there's always a line for someone.

Irene McAleese: Right. Very good. Very good.

Phil Latz: Yes, I think we'll link to the European declaration in the show notes and also you'll see a CIE manifesto and the

Kevin Mayne: Please do. Yeah.

Phil Latz: I have read the, I have read the declaration and it is an amazing document. To get 27 nations to agree to such a detailed document is a massive

achievement

Kevin Mayne: Thank you.

Phil Latz: your organization's part.

Kevin Mayne: Thank you. Yeah, we're very proud of it.

Phil Latz: the, Yeah. So, so you should be. So you're currently in the process of retiring from CIE and you gave them a lot of notice and we, I know you've already recruited the successor, but you can't announce their name. So we're not going to do any [00:21:00] speculation about that because by the time this comes out, that will be announced and we'll add an, we'll add a link to the announcement in the show notes.

But one thing for now you could share, what advice would you have if you had to give one or two key pieces of advice to your successor? What would they be?

Kevin Mayne: Well, I think it actually guided the process. I mean, the board obviously talked to me, but then they drew up a person specification. tradition coming out of the voluntary sector, my personality, perhaps is closer to the sort of startup mindset and to the, you know, hungry push, push, push, get into the room, pull every lever we can. Now we have the European cycling decoration. We have the mobility transition pathway, which is the technical name for the industry plan. It's about using it when you're there. So we're going to realize some of that. So yeah, I mean, it will be measurable by funds that flow [00:22:00] by initiatives that come forward.

And so perhaps the personality changes of both the organization and the message of the person, but even in the team, in that it is less about bashing on the door to get in and leveraging by finding common ground. Then actually working out right. What's the right program? Where's the next multi million coming from?

Where's the next billion coming from? How does country X, person Y, funding scheme Z actually get steered into cycling? So, I think the expectation is that we are Consolidating and building on what we've got, and that will be a change of tone, which is great, because that does a change, you know, change of personality, change of structure.

So, you know, that's where I have been guiding and that's where I've certainly guided the board and said, you know, I don't, nobody should be [00:23:00] replicated. And in this case, you shouldn't even try because the job will, has changed.

Phil Latz: You've done the hard yards and someone can stand on your shoulders essentially

Kevin Mayne: one way I put it, yeah.

Phil Latz: you've gotten all. So you're coming to Australia this summer, mainly for family reasons, but I know you're also meeting with We Ride Australia and I imagine perhaps other groups as well.you've, you've said in a moment ago that you've, it's a decade since your last visit and given that that's quite a long time, and what changes are you hoping to see?

When it comes, and what were your, what were your experiences in your many previous visits that even go back to your

Kevin Mayne: Yeah, I mean I first came to Australia as part of that corporate career in 1985 to work for Cadbury Sweps in Melbourne and was fortunate enough through work to travel across most of the major cities. God, I was lonely being a cyclist then. Phew! Uh, dear me. No, I think [00:24:00] 2014 I came to Vow City in Adelaide and then was fortunate enough to travel to to Melbourne, Sydney, as in that process, met many of the NGOs, met some really great people, and obviously many of them came to the Vow City in Adelaide.

And I think what was very striking was, for example, Stephen Yarwood in Adelaide was, was trying to do stuff that you would recognize in place making and urbanism and city formation, where cycling was one of the instruments. You know, trying to create better public spaces, and remove car dominance, which was having a heck of a backlash here in Adelaide, you know, in terms of electorally, a backlash and an opposition.

And then when I came to,

Phil Latz: I might just quickly interrupt. Sorry just to say that Steven Yarwood was the mayor of the city of Adelaide at the time for those people who don't, don't remember. and there's been a long dry period with some non progressive mayors in [00:25:00] Adelaide, which is my old hometown.

Kevin Mayne: Yeah, yeah.

Phil Latz: closely fought.

Fortunately, now we've got a reasonably progressive man, back in the

Kevin Mayne: Good to hear. Well, that's the sort of things I'll be looking forward to hearing and seeing. But when I went to Melbourne City, people were, you know, things happened. There were a few bike lanes, but extraordinarily, you know, New South Wales was trying to take out the stuff that the City of Sydney put in.

You know, and it was bitter and horrible, kind of, and very personally driven. And you could feel it. And that was, you know, that's tough. Yeah. But actually the weirdest thing and the thing that left me totally, I'm going to say confused was in both cities, I saw what I can only call the weirdest cycling infrastructure.

I saw bike lanes that were limited by time and switched on and off during the day. Bizarre. I saw a high speed hard shoulder on a [00:26:00] freeway. the local cyclists were arguing should be kept. Probably the most dangerous piece of infrastructure I've ever seen anywhere in the world. And people were arguing for it.

Cause it was like, apparently it's the way you go fast. And in Melbourne and other places, there were kind of bits of paint on very, very high speed roads. and it says like somebody argued for this. And when I spoke to some of the community, the community were like, what's your problem? It was just bizarre.

And I walked away very, very confused by what people wanted, both in the advocacy community and obviously politically. Yeah, it was a very personalized and polarized debate between sort of left and right, green and others. And I was a bit depressed for the community in some ways, because I can see more green shoots almost anywhere in the world, even in places that are really struggling like, you know, Taiwan massively, you know, in bits of Asia where [00:27:00] they're actually doing stuff that made sense.

But I couldn't, I couldn't for the life of me work out. I think it's this kind of heritage of sports being such a bigger part of the mix. so I'm hoping, and I'm hearing cause I did obviously follow. friends and colleagues and contacts, that things are moving and you obviously hear about new stuff, new infrastructure going in.

and it would be great to see that and be re inspired for my Australian friends, but I, I, it was very confusing back then.

Phil Latz: That's a very diplomatic word,

Irene McAleese: So, I mean, I guess generally for countries that, would be, I mean, Australia would be counted among those where there's a sort of more of a moto normativity, sort of perspective. you know, Australia is not alone in that, but I [00:28:00] mean, what would you say for these type of countries tends to be the lowest hanging fruit that could be done to improve active travel?

Kevin Mayne: Well the one thing about Australia I say and it strongly it shares itself with even countries like Russia and a little bit of the States and us. The roads are enormous. They're absolutely enormous. So that the space is there. The challenge equally is that particularly suburbia in Australia is really sprawling by European standards.

So, you know, a bike ride is not realistic when two suburbs are multi kilometers away. apart from now the arrival of the e bike and it is a game changer and just do not underestimate how big that is and it's smile because you know why is it the biggest share of e bikes in Europe or actually in the Netherlands and it will they all get bikes and they've all got bikes why on earth do they need these new toys so because a Dutch [00:29:00] person knows more about what it feels like to bike into a headwind between two villages where their mum and their nan lives than anybody in the world And, and, you know, it's stupid enough to try too hard and get hot and sweaty when someone offers you a kind of a, a way of doing it real easy. And, you know, here in Brussels, I was the only idiot biking in from 10, 15 kilometers south of the city to work in the morning 12 years ago. Now the bike lanes are full. People riding speed e bikes and e bikes coming in from the southern suburbs. It's glorious.really glorious. Now that does require a kind of highway mentality, because if you have to stop at every intersection and every junction and every corner, then maybe, you know, that that that requires multi jurisdictional planning, and I'm sure that's very difficult given the kind of individual fiefdoms.

And we have it here in Brussels. I mean, we have 17 communes, and they're all individual fiefdoms, and joined up planning has been [00:30:00] difficult, but now happens.and that requires, therefore, a regional or a whole metropole kind of approach of thinking. But you cannot underestimate how big a game changer this is. But it, you know, it is backed by infrastructure. or by dedicated routes and cycling streets and, you know, car free zones and this kind of stuff. So that's absolutely one. The second one is, I think, is destinations. I'm passionate about destinations. And, We're fortunate in Europe. We have a culture of, you know, plazas and open places and narrow city centers that don't lend themselves to cars.

So they are car free. But I think, you know, Australia, whether it was your beaches or your malls or your city centers and your neighborhoods, the 15 minute city concept, which has been horribly tarnished by being part of a conspiracy theory, but it's actually. 15 minutes from where everybody lives should be a [00:31:00] really great place to go with your kids that you can get to by bike and where kids want to hang out. So let's not get too hung up what that is, but it could be a couple of coffee shops. It could be a park. It could be a beach and really, if you've got great destinations, start there. You can't fix an entire multi million population city. But if you can link great destinations with where people live, then you have the basis, with the e bike or the shared bike as the instrument.

Irene McAleese: We're starting to see some e bike subsidy schemes coming in here in Australia, and where they've been in Queensland is the latest, have been wildly popular. and so that's, that's a really good suggestion. Reminder actually that even in the Netherlands, the uptake has been massive. because I, I have been some conferences and people say, [00:32:00] well, well, we're not in Amsterdam.

We're not Copenhagen. How do we possibly, you know, do that here? And, and I think that's a great point,

Kevin Mayne: Well, just remember,

Irene McAleese: that the e bike can help unlock some of the distance, the longer

Kevin Mayne: yeah, the Dutch drive as much as anybody in Europe, if not more. All their infrastructure is good. Their driving infrastructure, their public transport infrastructure. It's just they use the right vehicle for the right trip. So almost every Dutch person wouldn't bother taking the car for a two or three kilometer trip.

They wouldn't bother taking the car if they're going to go with the kids and the family. of course they'll use the car if they're going to drive 50 kilometers cross country to go to certain work environments. and there's central railway stations in places like Utrecht to some of the biggest public transport hubs in Europe.

So, you, you've got to combine it and you've got to think, but if you don't think destinations, the journey's, it's not all about biking to work.[00:33:00]

Irene McAleese: Yes.

Kevin Mayne: places for people to go where they will enjoy the experience, and then they will come home again. And obviously you've got a bit of that with Waterfront, which is particularly strong in many of the Australian cities.

Use the Waterfront. Connect to the Waterfront. but yeah, squares, parks, footy grounds, doesn't matter what it is.

Irene McAleese: Yep. Fantastic. so, Kevin, we know you're not planning a completely passive, retirement. so I'm going to ask you what your next chapter involves, but also I was thinking about you today, as reflecting on your blog that you used to write. you used to have something about more cycling for everyone, especially me. And I, I actually loved that because, I, I, and I was saying to Phil earlier, you know, even though I started a cycling technology company with my husband, Phil, sometimes you get so [00:34:00] busy doing the Doing the work and you think why I need to get time out on my bike. that's not fair. I'm helping everyone else get out on their bike safely and I need to do it.

So what is your next chapter involved and what cycling have you got planned?

Kevin Mayne: I, I have managed to maintain the cycling fairly well. I mean, and I mean it helps living kind of 20 kilometers from the office and getting to do those things and staying reasonably healthy through cycling. and it remains my hobby, you know, I mean, when I get back from Australia, I've gotta find some chances to ride in Australia.

'cause when I come back, my brothers and I are gonna ride the tour of Flanders Challenge and that's 140 kilometers over the cobbles. So, I can't afford to arrive back having done nothing but eat for for two months. So, which is likely, with the, with the hospitality of my relatives, my wife's relatives.

But, no, I mean, you can't switch this off. As I said to you, I mean, it's been, it's a life thing. It is more than the job I've done for the last 20 plus years. it's in my family DNA, it's in [00:35:00] my DNA, it's something I'm kind of passionate about, but I'm pretty passionate about people and organizations.

And running them is one of the tasks, but supporting and mentoring is the other opportunity. And I, I mean, I'm already on the board of the International Mountain Bike Association in Europe, and I will stay there until the rest of my term is up. And I hope. that there are opportunities really to move more into a mentoring and coaching on a small scale.

I've had one or two lovely approaches. People have said, oh, can you help us, you know, curate some things or do some things? And I've said, okay, not until I've made a clean break. So I've made no formal commitments.I have three rules. non executive I've done, I've done 40 years in management. It's enough.

part time, because there must be time for family and space, and it's part of what I wish to do, and I wish to do other [00:36:00] things. and it's got to be fun. I want to work with people who want to actually do stuff and succeed. And that is inspirational in itself, and I think, Yeah, we all got a time to celebrate the small victories and then you move on and encouraging people because cycling advocacy can be like beating your head against a wall enabling people to see beyond that and celebrate small victories and move on and build is the kind of mentoring that I've done in the past and really motivates me.

So I, I hope. And frankly, if nobody wants that, yes, there are several bikes to be ridden. And there's a lot of places I've, there are lots of places I've never been. And, I'm really looking forward to that.

Irene McAleese: Well, you can do both, but, yeah. No, I'm sure you're going to have a long queue, for, for And, and seriously, Kevin, you have been, an inspiration to so many of the, the [00:37:00] Companies that came through CIE, many of that large chunk of companies are, startups, small, you know, small organizations, innovative organizations.

And,I feel you, definitely shared a lot of inspiration and encouragement. and. That seems so important. You can't underestimate the importance of that because sometimes it just takes somebody who's kind of in the space to go, yeah, I see what you're doing. I get that. I see a role for that.

that's important, you know, and it helps to validate you. And I think that, you know, that's, that's a fantastic contribution in

Kevin Mayne: I think why, I mean, when I did a, we did a meeting of our members, a few weeks ago, which was a chance to say some farewell words where I actually had the community physically together. And one of the things I've wanted to make is. Just look at yourselves. You are saying things and doing things that you didn't do even five or six years [00:38:00] ago.

You know, you're getting up and making speeches. You're talking to each other about what makes a difference.

And we don't talk about, you know, How many bikes did we sell? How light they were. We talk about services and we talk about aftermarket and we talk about changing behavior and we talk about influencing politicians. And I was like, listen to yourselves. This is amazing. So it is time for me to step back. You've

got it. You've got it. And if, if a hundred companies have got that, then those hundred companies must infect another hundred companies. And that's where the journey goes from here for the sector.

Irene McAleese: Mm. Mm. But an interesting observation hearing you say that as well, just, I wanted to mention was, we talked about, unlocking EU funding, but it's also the VC in the, investment funding that's able to come into that space because once you stop being such a cottage [00:39:00] industry, everybody doing their sort of separate things and you come together, you can size the market, you can start to talk about things in the language of, you know, Investors.

I know that, you

Kevin Mayne: Well, let's be clear for your Australian ecosystem. I mean, it's not going to be the current trajectory, a manufacturing ecosystem. You know, you are an import economy, but on our analysis, this is for Europe. 80 percent of the jobs associated with our ecosystem are aftermarket jobs. You know, they are deliveries.

They are digital. They are leasing. They are fiscal, they are repair, they are recycle, they are tourism, they are, you know, operating bike hire, whatever you look at, but it's 80%. So, if you narrowly define yourselves by even the supply chain part of the industry, then you're just losing all of that power. But then when you talk, say venture capital.[00:40:00]

You talked to Venture Capitalist about a digitalized, service orientated, growth ecosystem that's actually dealing with future challenges like, you know, recovery materials, climate change, health, accessibility, enabling many, many more women, young people, people of lower incomes. You've got markets.

You've got really strong new markets, which we've hardly touched.and again, we've had to learn that from automotive. The automotive ecosystem globally is a remarkable creature. Now that we may regard them as the target, but boy, we

have to study. To put one leased company car on the road 14 companies. And every one of them has got jobs and profit margins. It's not even about squeezing it. It's about actually. Making that ecosystem work for [00:41:00] cycling.

Phil Latz: that comes back to what you said right at the front, at the top end was about all those partnerships and collaborations becoming really important. Kevin, it's been a fantastic conversation and we're coming to the end, but I do want to ask one final question. And that is, if there, is there anything we haven't asked you or anything you would have liked to have added?

Kevin Mayne: my only final word is to the community that will maybe listen to this and it's effectively to say kind of thank you because yeah, I mean, I get to do the blocks, but there's, there's thousands of people who are, you know, running a bike shop campaigning on a corner for one simple kind of junction to be modified, guiding some kids to do their first mountain bike ride.

And I have been extraordinarily privileged. And yes, Irene, I've tried to share these people when I, when I used to [00:42:00] blog, but they are, it's a, it's a hell of a community. It's very hard to find negatives in the cycling community. There's a sort of basis of lovely people. Who believe in all, all parts of cycling and they believe in each other.

that doesn't go away cause I retire. They are my glorious extended family. And, I just say, just keep doing it. You know, we will try, people like me will try and help you have more impact. But it starts with, with you and you are, Really, really inspirational. and it's a bit special.

Phil Latz: Well, on that uplifting note, Kevin Mayne, thanks for joining us on the Micromobility Report podcast.

Irene McAleese: You're very welcome. Thank you.

Phil Latz: Well, Irene, that was an amazing chat with Kevin. What were some of the highlights for

Irene McAleese: Oh, look, actually, personally, I have to [00:43:00] say it's a real honor to, to speak to Kevin as outgoing, CEO of Cycling Industry Europe. I've known Kevin since For a number of years and SeeSense my company was actually one of the founding companies that joined CIE at its initial establishment. In fact, we just joined a little bit before that as well when it was still part of ECF.

So I really have understood Kevin's vision from the outset and the things that we spoke about the end about how he inspired so many companies, ours was certainly one of those, he's really interesting guy because he understands industry and business very much as he, he's, he spoke about the interest in running companies and people, but he also understands advocacy, the two different sides of the coin, he can go to Eurobike and hang out with all the businesses that are, working in cycling.

Then he can turn up to the VeloCity conference and, and hang out with all of the [00:44:00] advocates. And he, he crosses the two, worlds really well. And he's actually has helped a lot, I think a lot to bring those two together. and that's, that's been evidence in all the success that they've been having.

Unlocking the funding, helping to build the communities. I think it was a great discussion. I think he shared a lot of insights that are going to be hugely useful for people, I hope, listening to this. yeah.

Phil Latz: Absolutely. He's been one of the mainstays and I remember meeting him in Adelaide at Velocity and other times before and after that. And he's always been one of the key people. I think a couple of points for me that it just comes through a man who's happy to leave his ego at the door and always be people focused.

Goal driven and whatever it takes to achieve that for the common good. I was also fortunate enough to be at Eurobike this year in the room where they had their annual function, Cycle Industries Europe, and it was packed. It was literally a standing room at the [00:45:00] back and the sides and so on. And he gave a really inspirational speech off the cuff.

I'll have a look what the sound quality is like of that. I did record it from sitting in the front

Irene McAleese: Oh, yeah.

Phil Latz: but it was really, really

Irene McAleese: he can really speak. Yeah, he's a great presenter and yeah.

Phil Latz: speaker, which, which we need in advocacy. So, as you know, at the end of every session, we do a session called what's up. where we catch up with what we're doing or what we might be about to do.

So Irene, what's up?

All

Irene McAleese: Well, for me, I'm just back from the Smart City Expo in Barcelona. Great to see lots of active travel on the, on the agenda there. to be honest, still getting a little bit over that and processing all of that. coming up for me next, I'm quite excited. I'm excited to be participating in an ITS Australia policy webinar about transport big data for multimodal traffic management.

and this is [00:46:00] where, the wonderful Dr. Nima Nasir from University of Melbourne is going to be sharing his research, about. data in transport, with SeeSense has been one of the contributors of the data that he's been, studying, looking at how it can be used, how connected, car data and bike data can be used to make safer, faster, more efficient travel.

right. Well, I've got four points actually. I did only have one, but they seem to be organically growing. So my first what's up would be that I'm heading down to Melbourne next week for the We Ride Australia annual general meeting and also the annual cycling luminary awards. So We Ride Australia being the peak industry funded bike advocacy group, a little bit like a mini cycle industries Europe.

Phil Latz: And these awards have been held since 2002, and I've been lucky to have attended most of them. And they're really [00:47:00] inspirational. There's three awards being given this year. One's on bike culture, which goes to organizations. Some of them are very grassroots organizations. There's four nominees, I think, for that award.

Then there's a built environment award, which is the best infrastructure, and I think there's four of those. There's a Rail trial.St. Kilda bike paths, one in Sydney, the new, Kevin referred to that College Street bike path that was ripped out by Duncan Gay, the then Transport Minister or Roads Minister for New South Wales State Government.

The reinstated College Street, path with its various links is one of the nominees and one other. And then there's a leadership award for individuals who've done outstanding things. So looking forward to those. awards and we'll put that in the micro mobility report newsletter. The second thing I'd mention is that I'm cycling more with my grandson who's all of five years old [00:48:00] now, but he's, he's up for a six or eight kilometer ride now.

He's very much enjoying his riding and boy, it makes you aware of infrastructure. I have a very high standard. If you like of safety and a low tolerance for risk when I choose where to take him. So it's strictly off road cycle paths at this stage. And he had a little fall yesterday, but dusted himself up and a few tears and off he went.

So it's, it's just a joy of life to teach your grandkids how to ride a

Irene McAleese: bike

Oh, that's

Phil Latz: better. And the third thing I'd say, which I know we were just chatting about before, and I know it's more of an industry story, but. QuadLock, an Australian startup, has just sold to Thule, the multinational company best known for their bike racks and so on, for half a billion Australian dollars.

So a remarkable achievement. QuadLock's [00:49:00] clearly not just selling their QuadLock locks that are like a case that goes around a smartphone. I'm pretty sure just about everyone will have heard of them or seen them because they literally sell by the millions. And so they're global, but still that's a remarkable effort for an Australian startup

Irene McAleese: So impressive. Wow.

Phil Latz: Just, just two

Irene McAleese: Half a billion. Well done. Well done, QuadLock.

Phil Latz: Yeah, indeed. And, and I had personal experience in the early days of setting up World Bicycle Relief Australia. They came in as a 50, 000 a year sponsor when I was in the early stages of that organization. When they were, they were in turn a much smaller organization themselves.

And that was a remarkable sponsorship for what was then quite a small company and, very inspirational. Just a couple, two guys called Chris Peters and Rob Ward are the [00:50:00] founders of that out of Melbourne. So congratulations to them. And then the fourth and final thing I'll say on a personal note is since our last podcast, I have joined the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

So I'm now a flag waiver card carrying member. And in the new year, I'm going to do their graduates course, which involves over a thousand pages of reading, and then five intensive face to face days of, lectures and meetings and then more study and then exams and you have to get a 65 percent mark to pass and, and then if I pass, I'll be able to put the letters G A I C D after my name, graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

And somebody asked me, how old are you? Why are you doing that? But I think it will be very good for future advocacy work and also for the business coaching that I do. So, looking forward to that in the new year [00:51:00] and I think the garden will get quite neglected, the weeds will have a field day while I'm, while I'm busy studying for

Irene McAleese: Good for you. That's fantastic. that's quite useful if you want to become a Ned as well. A non executive director

Phil Latz: Anything else you want to add to Irene before we wrap up?

Irene McAleese: just to say is this episode will be coming out in December. I'd like to wish all of our listeners are very happy, restful, safe Christmas, lots of cycling and, a bit of rest, rest, recovery. And, I'm really looking forward to 2025. I think. 2024 has been a big transition year for me.

There's been a lot going on in the cycling industry, but I'm really hopeful and very positive for 2025. I want to rest and, and chill and really allow myself a bit of headspace to tackle 2025 with, with some big ambition. So I wish, I wish everyone a great Christmas. I just want to say that.[00:52:00]

Phil Latz: Yes. What a great thought to go out on. And yes, we do. We will have a rest speaking of rest, so we won't put out a podcast in January. We'll have some family Christmas holidays and we'll be back on air in February. So until then, thanks for listening.

Irene McAleese: Thanks everyone. Thanks, Phil.

Phil Latz: Bye.