Flanders’ Bike Valley (“The Global Cycling Center”) was established in 2013 as one of the first bottom-up clusters in Flanders. As an Open Innovation Center for the Cycling Industry the cluster was founded by 4 local SME’s (bottom-up) which are lead plants in their sector, together with one knowledge institute: BioRacer (a cycling clothes manufacturer), Lazer Sport (helmets), Ridley Race Productions, Voxdale (a specialist in aerodynamics who engineered and designed for Indycar) and Flanders Make (a knowledge center for the Automotive Industry).

Flanders’ Bike Valley focuses on 6 major topics: Mobility, Sports (involvement of Belgian Cycling Foundation and Belgian Olympic Comittee), Safety and Healthcare, Science & Technology, Industry&Government and Turism. Although the cluster recently started, the amount of members grew to more than 70 within the last 6 months. This number will still increase in the coming years. More than 50% of the members are other SME’s which come from a diversity of sectors (not only the cycling sector) like electronics, design, ICT, Healthcare,…