Cyclists & Cycling Around the World

ForewordOne evening back in April 2011, Lotte Bech, a Danish architect and urban planner,happened to meet up with Juan Carlos Dextre, a professor in the department ofengineering at the Universidad Católica del Perú. They were both attending theconference ‘Second Meeting of Sustainable Urban Mobility: A dialogue between Europeand Latin America’ and shared the same passion – cycling against a background ofsustainable urban mobility - think what this could mean for the quality of life in the citiesof the world. From this chance meeting, the book whose foreword you are now reading,was born!
Juan Carlos had a dream of creating a book about cycling as an extension to his volume
on ‘Pedestrian Facilities’, published in 2003. He was just waiting for the right opportunity.
This he saw in a perfect match with Lotte as co-editor, with her experience from working
as a cycle planner in the City of Copenhagen, one of the world’s leading cycle cities, andwith a huge international network.
So, a lively email correspondence developed between Lima and Copenhagen over thenext two years resulting in the exchange of thousands of mails. Lotte was following up
on Juan Carlos’s dream with the vision of producing a book which would inspire people
around the world to create liveable and bikeable cities. The book was to be written byauthors with hands on and theoretical experience of a wide range of good practices
including cycle planning and bicycle advocacy. It was to be an anthology of articles which
would act as a source of inspiration to expand cycling across the continents of the world.
Lotte and Juan Carlos met up again in Lima in September of the same year, at theSeminario Internacional ”Movilidad Sostenible de Lima”. It was at that point that theplanning of the book really took off. Which topics should the book cover? Where could
good practices from around the world be found? Who had valuable experiences which
could inspire others? And who should the potential readers be?
It was decided to draft in Mike Hughes as an expert in communication in English. This wasmade possible through the sponsorship of 3M Peru. Mike, owner of TRIPLE Acommunication in English,
located in Copenhagen and himself an enthusiastic supporter of the bicycle as away of furthering sustainable urban mobility, developed the Principles of Written
Communication.

13These guidelines were sent to all authors and were used by the editorial team, of which
Mike had now become a member, to ensure a common editorial line throughout thebook. This resulted in a series of exciting and inspirational articles appealing to a wide
range of readers as well as professional planners and researchers.
The book was planned as an English-Spanish publication but as a result of the quantityof the articles, we have chosen to publish two separate editions: the English one to bepublished in November 2013 on the occasion of the III EIMUS Conference on Sustainable
Mobility in Lima and the Spanish one next year. The authors have been invited to thelaunch of the book at the conference, when it will be commented on by the well-known
expert in sustainable urban mobility, Alfonso Sanz.
The twenty five authors have contributed on a very generous scale with their valuable
experiences, their time and their expertise in various areas. This has resulted in a series ofwonderful articles which contain descriptions of the results they have achieved, reportsof how they have achieved them and, not least, the challenges they have overcome on
the way. This now constitutes an impressive body of examples which will inspire others toemulate them in developing cycling in their own way in their own city.
As editors, we would like to thank each of the authors for their willing and fruitfulcooperation. It has been a pleasure to work with all of you who are so committed toand enthusiastic about so many aspects of cycling. Thank you too, for your patience andwillingness to make the changes we requested of you, whether they were on grounds ofgeneral readability, length of article or content.
Finally, we would like to offer our acknowledgements to Mikael Colville-Andersen for thedesign of the front and back covers of the book.
Juan Carlos Dextre,
Mike Hughes& Lotte Bech14