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Bike Valley
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’ Drive (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. Within these major topics aerodynamic research plays a large role at Flanders' Bike Valley. Aerodynamic measurements, mainly focussed on cycling, are performed in the on-site low-speed wind tunnel (wind speeds up to 108km/hr).
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,…
Flanders’ Bike Valley organizes partner matching events (often together with other clusters/valleys), is setting-up breakthrough open innovation projects for multiple partners and will also focus on joint internationalisation and incubation in cooperation with BikeVille Incubator (the goal is to set-up a cycling technology incubation center). Since cycling is anchored in the roots of the Flemish People (as early adopters for new cycling technologies) and all involved Flemish SME’s are globally leading innovators in the cycling world, Flanders’ Bike Valley is seen as a smart specialisation for the Flemish Region.