Mountain bike visionary Gary Vernon will enrich this year's speaker program with his knowledge. His work for the Walton Family Foundation in Bentonville, Arkansas, set up by WalMart founders Sam and Helen Walton, is groundbreaking and shows how much added value bike projects can generate at community level. The "Oz Trails" are now a network of more than 200 miles of trails that are seamlessly integrated into the transportation infrastructure in and around Bentonville. These trails have transformed the town from a hick town to one of the most livable cities in the U.S. 

Gary has helped reshape an entire city around the bicycle. And this has concrete positive economic consequences, not only for the large corporation WalMart, which is at home in Bentonville. Numerous small and medium-sized companies have been founded here or have settled in Bentonville because of the high quality of life. Today, Bentonville is known as "The MTB Capital of North America."

Another highlight at the lectern was the appearance of Manfred Meindl, Head of Marketing at Vaude. While the German and European supply chain laws are now in force, the Baden-Württemberg-based outdoor outfitter Vaude set out around 15 years ago to make its production consistently sustainable from start to finish. Vaude was an absolute pioneer in this respect and has thus consistently built up a brand image.

Manfred Meindl will talk about sustainability as a business discipline and how this transformation has changed corporate communication at Vaude and what the bike and tourism industry can learn from it. The example of Vaude shows how entrepreneurship can work for the benefit of all, how it serves to build a brand image and how competitiveness does not fall by the wayside.

The entire congress program is available here: congress.bike/program

German Mountain Bike Congress

• Date: June 4-6, 2024
• Location: Hohenstaufensaal, Annweiler am Trifels
• Congress website: kongress.bike