Tjeu is the Bicycle Mayor Network Intern at BYCS, focusing on the process of onboarding new bicycle mayors, communicating with them, as well as reporting on the status of their activism.
Being born in the Netherlands, Tjeu was immediately immersed in the local cycling culture, be it with training wheels or on the back of his mother’s bike. This mode of transport continued when he moved to Copenhagen, although would slowly fade away once he left the Danish capital at age 5. From there on cycling remained a constant. The varying locations in which Tjeu grew up meant that cycling everywhere became much more challenging. Up until returning to Amsterdam for university, the bicycle remained important in his daily commute, although it only made up a fraction of the overall travel distance.
It was only upon his return to Amsterdam, that he realized the luxury of having a separate bicycle network, and thus shifted his focus from general European politics addressed in his studies to an emphasis on urbanism, city planning, and active mobility policy. He hopes to implement the knowledge he brings from living in countries with less advanced cycling cultures to tactically expand the network in a manner that seeks to address the shortcomings he experienced elsewhere.
Tjeu hopes that via his exposure to the status of cycling in other cultures represented in the Bicycle Mayor Network, he can gain a better understanding of the challenges active mobility faces on a global scale.