Cycling In The City: Vintage, Road or Electric?

What makes a city cyclist friendly? Few cars? Clearly demarcated cycle lanes? Good weather all year round? When you break it down, it’s a surprisingly nebulous question that can digress into a number of unexpected things. Culture, urban planning and even people’s perceptions of cycling safety all play a part when considering how good for bikes a city really is.

Given Barcelona’s consistently glorious climate, the envy of cyclists from Europe’s colder, wetter climes, it’s a wonder that it has taken the city so long to really get it’s cycling revolution into gear. However, today Barcelona’s cycling infrastructure is much improved—with chains oiled, brakes checked and seats adjusted, cycling in Barcelona has never been so good. Or has it?

“Thirty years ago, there was no bike infrastructure at all in Barcelona, and there were almost no cyclists. So, from 30 years ago to this point, where we have over 200 km of bike lanes and 200,000 cyclists, a lot of work has been done."—Álvaro Nicolás

Recent years have seen the advent of “e-bikes,” electric machines that can vary greatly in both size and speed which the government is finding tricky to regulate. They’re considered a menace by some and a danger by others, and alongside that the bike lane network has a number of issues which need resolving.

There are, however, plenty of remedies to these ailments, and Barcelona’s department of mobility is taking various steps to continue improving cycling conditions. Furthermore, as an antidote to the mania of city riding, there are a number of groups of cycling enthusiasts who have got together to create road cycling clubs, eschewing congested urban roads for the sun-kissed uplands of rural Catalunya.

Cycling in the City

“Barcelona, by most objective, on-paper definitions is a fairly bicycle-friendly city,” says Jay Libove, a road cycling enthusiast who has been a member of a Barcelona-based road cycling group for over a decade. “In the last three years or so the amount of investment made by the Colau administration has been building on what was already here.”

The cycling boom under Mayor Ada Colau that Jay is referring to began when she was elected in 2015, promising €22 million in funds to make Barcelona safer for cyclists. Álvaro Nicolás, chief of staff to the recently resigned councilor for mobility, Mercedes Vidal, tells me that “over the last four years, we grew the bike paths in Barcelona from 116 km to 209 km—we almost doubled the kilometers of bike lanes. And, we have also increased the number of cyclists by almost 50%. So we went from approximately 140,000 bike users daily to now around 200,000 per day.”

“One of the things that really doesn't work here, is that you have lanes within Barcelona, but if you want to commute from the outskirts into the center there is nothing, it is completely absent.”—Graciela Nowenstein

But while this all sounds promising, much of it is only actually true, as Jay notes, on paper. Sure, Barcelona checks out on the good weather front, but it is by no means a cyclist’s paradise, especially when compared with other cities around Europe.

“I mean, I am quite biased.” Says Graciela Nowenstein, a keen cyclist and owner of the Eroica Caffè. “Before coming here I lived in the Netherlands, in Groningen, which is the place where there are the most bicycles in the Netherlands. So to me, there are too many cars and the levels of air pollution [here] are just awful.”

Pollution is one of four main issues that Álvaro says the city is trying to improve, the others being cyclist safety, use of public space and transport equity. Many of these issues are intrinsically linked, and Álvaro says the main way the city is trying to solve them is by improving its cycle lanes: “What we are doing is analyzing each street and each space and deciding in which areas you have to provide special bike paths which are segregated from traffic.”

Ideally, Álvaro explains, “we would like to develop one way bike lanes [throughout the city], but the issue is that they would take up double the space, and that creates a lot of debate which can sometimes block the actual development of the bike paths.”

In their current state, however, some people don’t see Barcelona’s cycle lanes as fit for purpose. “One of the things that really doesn't work here, is that you have lanes within Barcelona, but if you want to commute from the outskirts into the center there is nothing, it is completely absent.” Graciela tells me, “If you don't have lanes in the city it is not that dangerous, but if you don't have lanes on the roads between the outskirts and the center then, well, it’s rough. You could not commute from Mataró to here, for example.”

Until recently there has been a real lack of regulations surrounding e-bikes, mainly concerning whether they should be allowed to ride alongside manual pedallers. And this has caused much controversy, especially given their danger to pedestrians.

Álvaro claims this is something the city is currently working on alongside the 35 municipalities around Barcelona, citing projects like the one connecting the city Esplugues de Llobregat as an example of the plans for the future. “Thirty years ago, there was no bike infrastructure at all in Barcelona, and there were almost no cyclists,” he says, justifying the current state of affairs. “So, from 30 years ago to this point, where we have over 200 km of bike lanes and 200,000 cyclists, a lot of work has been done. We are working in the right direction, I would say.”

However, and as with anything, laws can only do so much. Jay asserts that in terms of safety, a large part of the responsibility lies with the riders themselves. “To really be a successful city cyclist, you have to be a competent, confident cyclist … You must overcome your fear of traffic and consider what you are: a very lightweight vehicle surrounded by very heavy vehicles which can accidentally stomp on you. You are a mouse in a circus full of elephants. Now, that is not meant to scare you away from being the mouse, it just means you have to be a mouse that roars.”

Are "Friends" Electric?

The cycling boom in Barcelona has arrived alongside various technological innovations, meaning there are now seemingly endless ways in which you get around town—from sleek, to practical, to electrified oddities.

One of Barcelona’s greatest two wheeled assets, for locals at least, is the public bike hire scheme known as Bicing. Unlike bike sharing programs in other cities, like London’s Boris Bikes for example, Bicing is only available for locals. This is a sensible policy, in no small part because it means those drunken, sun-burnt tourists causing a ruckus on Las Ramblas can’t get their hands on them and inevitably lose or break them.

Bicing bikes are conspicuous around the city, and it’s not just for their vibrant scarlet coloring: “Bicing bikes are meant to be ready for incredibly heavy use by people who don't know what they’re doing and don't care,” Jay claims. “They are really heavy and relatively solid, like tanks.” The network and number of these sturdy, dependable vehicles is growing year on year, and the number of people you see riding them is a credit to their popularity.

From the conspicuous, then, to the downright ostentatious. So-called “e-bikes” (a term that encompasses electric bikes, scooters and various hybrids of the two) are having something of a moment in Barcelona right now, both as novelty vehicles for sightseeing tourists and for savvy commuters too. They are, however, inherently divisive, and it’s not just down to their looks.

Until recently there has been a real lack of regulations surrounding e-bikes, mainly concerning whether they should be allowed to ride alongside manual pedallers. And this has caused much controversy, especially given their danger to pedestrians. However, regulations are slowly beginning to be implemented. “We have regulations for electric scooters, which have been the first in Europe,” Álvaro says. “For example, we are not allowing them to use pedestrianized areas, nor pavements. We are regulating them in that they may only use the space for bicycles if they are small.”

And in terms of e-bikes? “Every bike that is under 250w is considered a bicycle, and therefore it can use a bike infrastructure,” he explains. “And those which can develop high speeds of more than 30km/h, they will be considered as motorbikes and they won't be allowed on the bike paths.” Policing these laws, however, is a whole different matter, and one which would require an entire study in its own right.

The Antidote

For most, cycling in Barcelona seems to be about practicality rather than pleasure. Instead of romantically taking sunlit rides along the beach, Barna locals want an efficient, free way to nip about town, and are willing to take on city roads in order to achieve this. And why wouldn’t they? Check on your Google Maps the next time you need to get somewhere, and I bet that cycling will be your quickest way to do so.

However, for people like Graciela and Jay, cycling is more than just a pragmatic solution to getting around the city—it’s a passion. Both are members, and indeed leaders, of groups who offer a way to pursue their hobby while living in the city center. Road cycling is their answer, an antidote to the stress and smog of riding in the city that comes in the form of long rural trips on specialist, lightweight machines.

Road cycling is famous around the world for the absolute commitment and dedication it necessitates from its adherents—if you’re planning on going out on rides of over 100 km, you’ve got to really love it. Catalunya is a real hotbed for the sport, and there are many professionals based in Girona for its excellent roads, weather and proximity to the perfect training ground of the Pyrenees.

But road cycling is not just for the pros, or “the Mamils in lycra” as Jay puts it. There are also various amateur groups in the city who go out on long-distance, uncompetitive rides purely for the joy of it, leaving the hectic streets of Barcelona behind for the bucolic calm of the countryside.

“Shortly after I arrived here over 11 years ago, I got put in touch with a Dutch fellow who was a semi-competitive cyclist, who wanted some kind of road cycling club that wasn't the absolute typical one,” says Jay. And, by “typical” he means, “They get out at 7:00 on a Sunday morning, they ride as hard and as fast as they can go, and they are home with their families before lunch.”

Instead, Jay wanted to start a club for passionate cyclists, but with a more laid-back attitude. “We sat down and came up with the idea for a social road cycling club.” He says, “We would do road rides, we would go relatively far, we would go relatively high, but we wouldn’t always be in a hurry. We would stop to smell the roses, drink the wine and have lunch somewhere.” The club is called The Barcelona Road Cycling Group, and today they have over 2,500 members.

And it seems this more relaxed sentiment (if you can call long-distance cardio relaxed) is shared by many other cycling enthusiasts in Barcelona. Graciela and her husband Miguel run a similar group as part of their newly-opened cycling cafe and restaurant—the Eroica Caffè.

“Miguel has been into bikes for a very long time, he sells urban bikes and travel bikes. And I have had for ten years a fresh pasta workshop.” Graciela tells me. “We wanted to put the two things together but with the idea that most of these places don’t give enough room to gastronomy. We were both also interested by Eroica, just by going there and doing the rides, and so we thought that would be a good combination.”

“Eroica” beyond the cafe is an uncompetitive series of races that take place in Italy, but with a difference. The rides all take place on vintage bikes and not on the pristine roads that most cycling events require, favoring the iconic gravel roads of Tuscany instead. “Eroica cycling is riding with old bikes like the old guys, eating what the old guys ate, and taking your time,” explains Graciela. “Everybody wears old clothes, you get old cars going up and down—it’s like an exhibition of old times.”

What started as a small event in Chianti some 22 years ago has now grown into an international brand. Over 8,000 people head to the Tuscan countryside to take part in the annual races, and there are also rides in California, Japan, South Africa, the UK and La Rioja here in Spain too.

“They [Eroica] have a very big global community, but they don’t have a single place to meet, because they meet for a week and then that’s it,” explains Graciela. “They have a very tiny cafe in the village where it started, but it’s a very small place. So we said to them, ‘Listen why don’t we open a place in Barcelona with your brand?’ So this [the Eroica Caffe] is in a sense the pilot for the future.”

Alongside weekly rides outside the city, the cafe also puts on various cycling-themed and gastronomic events in their beautiful space in the heart of Eixample. “We do book presentations,” Graciela says. “We also had a lawyer explaining what your rights are as a cyclist if you have an accident … We have wine events, cheese events, coffee events, pasta classes, cooking classes. One of the connections between Eroica and food is that we try to in a sense cook in a ‘heroic’ way—going back to basics and respecting the ingredients in a traditional way.”

Cycling, like all other sports, is difficult to put into one little box. Alongside the uber-committed pros, you also have enthusiastic amateurs, hobbyists and people who just want a way to easily get around without harming the environment.

While people will always have their gripes with the state of cycling in the city, statistically at least, Barcelona certainly is improving, and is now ranked the 11th most bicycle-friendly city in the world. And whoever is in power following the forthcoming local elections, Barna locals will hope they can continue to pedal forward and maintain Barcelona’s upward cycling trajectory.

The Eroica Caffe Barcelona can be found on Consell de Cent, 350 in Eixample.

Open Mon-Sat: 9:00-24:00, Sun: 9:00-17:00.

See more at: eroica.cc/en/eroica-caffe-barcelona

The Barcelona Road Cycling Group goes on weekday and weekend rides throughout the year. If you have a road bike and fancy taking part in one of its, trips you can join through its meetup page: meetup.com/The-Barcelona-Road-Cycling-Group

You can register for Bicing here: bicing.barcelona/es

Harry Stott is a regular contributor to the Barcelona Metropolitan covering Brexit, local political and social issues as well as the music scene. He recently received a B.A. in music from the University of Leeds, and now writes and produces radio content for a number of organizations in Barcelona and beyond. You can read more of Harry's articles here.