On a fine October afternoon...

...a while ago now, there were two people who had a ride to the beach. The sun was shining and the weather was excellent. The autumn breeze was refreshing as they rode down the cycling lane next to Paral·lel Avenue in Barcelona. Then, at the end of the avenue, they turned right and there they were, the end of Les Rambles with its Columbus statue pretending to signal America but signalling...France? Italy?

They turned left and cycled next to the sea, bordering Port Vell' ('Old Dock'). The white boats and the sun reflecting on the water were a delightful sight. It was impossible not to take a picture.




After a few shots, the riding continued. People walked, talked and lingered calmy on the seaside, enjoying their time. Finally they got to La Barceloneta and left the bike. It was time to walk for a while now, accompanied by the fading lights of the sunset.


A wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Barcelona and bike therapy

Does city life stress you? Are you fed up of being unable to unwind? Do you think cycle would help doing so? Then you need to try bike therapy!

I read about bike therapy a few weeks ago and it immediately caught my attention. I never heard about it and, judging for the little amount of information I found, it is a new practise. Mainly, bike therapy consist in combining cycling and relaxation exercises to reduce stress and gain tranquillity. The bike stroll must indeed be in a place which would favour all this.

There's a flower on my...saddle!

This is the very useful bike I found a couple of weeks ago as I was going to get a bike. Nice decoration isn't it? It made me thing about the video Anna posted some weeks ago.

Wanna have a ride in this well-decorated bike? Irony out: is this a good service? Do people think about other BiCiNg users? Maybe both? Well, let's take it easy or I should be pulling my hairs out in anger...

Anna from BCN

Bliss

It's 1 o'clock am and I'm cycling with number 13421 Bicing bike (one of the brand-new ones!) across Diagonal's wide bike lane in Barcelona. Diagonal is usually a crowded street but now there are only a few cars. I am alone with the bike, cycling back home after meeting a friend I had not seen for months.

I walked about 15 min to get to station with a bike and I got a good bike (the only one left). The brakes worked, the gears too and I did not even need to adjust the saddle. First, what else could I ask for?

Then the breeze at the wide cycling lane. I close the eyes just one second to become aware of the moment. I open them again. On the right hand side the trees curve towards the lane (those trees that give refreshing shade during the day): beautiful dark green leaves over my head. And me and the bike, no other bikes coming from the other direction nor anybike before or behind me. Just me.

My thoughts fly. To Anna's visit last month, to the friend I have just seen, to my whole life, to the thing I feel I am living. It is me, at 1 h am.

And then, when I leave Diagonal's bike lane, I enter the cozy streets of my quarter, Les Corts. No cars, no noise. The reflection of me cycling on a dark glass. There is no one on the street but, still, I feel safe.

I experience momentary bliss. I can't say why. It's something bigger than me that seizes me. I forget about my troubles, I feel safe. I cannot explain. And maybe all this already sounds stupid to you (as it sounds a bit to me now...but it is not stupid)

I am sad to leave the bike. I reach home and decide I will write about it. I realisedwe can find normal things so extraordinary sometimes. This time it was me, the bike and the refreshing spring breeze of a 15-16th May night in Barcelona.

Number 13421 bike, or the bike of bliss

Anna from BCN

My first bike video

So this is the video I did when cycling in Barcelona (see an earlier post for my overall impression):

About the video
It contains material about cycling along the harbor and seafront. The second bit follows a few women cycling along the Diagonal (one of the main roads in Barcelona).

Techniques
I was cycling with the BiCiNg bikes all the time and therefore used my small and robust (but poor in filming) Olympus photo camera. My gorillapod (the small version) was handy for the quick mount and release I needed, but on the other hand this tripod shakes quite a lot too because of the flexible joints. As a Linux user I used kdenlive to cut the videos. This program is much more powerful, but I'm just a beginner so for this time I took it easy. I changed the video to black&white due to the horrible color abberation and blurring of my camera.

Feel free to criticize, I'm grateful for any advice. I know that the quality isn't great and that I probably would have needed more material in order to create a more lively video. But well, it's just my first try.

By the way, does anybody of you know a proper tripod that can easily be mounted to handlebars and that can safely hold DV camcorders (mine weighs around 600g) or SLR cameras?

Anna cycling in Barcelona

Hola, this is actually anna from Vienna. I'm currently visiting Catalonia. It's a surprise visit for the other Anna, organized by her boyfriend Xavi. He also ensures that I do a lot of bicing and sightseeing while Anna is busy at work :-). I've been to Barcelona before in 2002, but only for one day. I think many things have changed the face of the city ever since, especially the cycling boom that has started with BiCiNg (Anna was damn right about that). So here are just a few of my impressions and comparisons to Vienna:

Bicycles
The vast majority of the cyclists here use BiCiNg bikes, second probably being folding bikes (quite unusual for me). BiCiNg bikes have three gears (the new Citybikes in Vienna will also have that), pneumatic tires (compared to solid rubber tires in Vienna), a refreshing red color and all the good stuff (fenders, chain and skirt guard, front rack, lights). In Vienna borrowing the city bikes is more involved, but you can choose the bike yourself. Here, the system chooses it for you and sometimes you have to repeat the procedure if you catch a broken bike.

Me bicing at the seafront this morning
By the way, can anybody explain me the sense of a smaller front tire?

BiCiNg or the cycling boom in Barcelona

Barcelona 2002. Barcelona 2009. The city has indeed changed. Not only in new buildings like the AGBAR Tower or the Fòrum de les Cultures and its never-ending works, but also in its new means of public transport: first the tramway, which reappeared in the city in 2004 and then, since 2007, a great cycling initiative called BiCiNg.

What is BiCiNg?
BiCiNg is a bike rental system which forms part of the public transport network in Barcelona. It doesn't work with the usual combined ticket for bus, train, subway and tram, though. To rent bikes, you have to pay an annual fee and then you are sent a BiCiNg card which you use to unblock the bikes in any station you find in Barcelona. This annual fee, it only costs 30 € this year, which makes a total of 2.5 € per month. It is cheap because Barcelona city hall partly subsidizes it through the new really expensive green parking area (it's like the usual blue parking area but more expensive).

How does BiCiNg work?
BiCiNg is controlled by an electronic system and its mode of operating is easy. Once you are sent your BiCiNg card, you get to a station and there you find a standpoint where there is a screen -available languages Catalan and Spanish- and a magnetic card reader. You show your card to the reader and the systems assigns you one of the parked bikes. You take it, check it is OK and then go. If there are no bikes free at the station, you show the card to the reader and it will tell you the nearest stations.
From the moment you get your bike, you can ride for half an hour at no extra cost. Every ten minutes you surpass this initial 30 min, is at the additional cost of 0,50 €.
When your commute is over, you only need to park the bike at a station and check it is well parked. If the parking lot is full, you show your card to the reader and it will show you a station with free slots to park the bike at it will give you ten extra minutes to get there.
This cycling system, however, is thought for city dwellers, but not for occasional visitors or tourists, as you can only pay per year and not for occasional rental. To cover this gap, there are bike rental shops in different areas of Barcelona, but I guess that at a rather different fee.

Where to find a BiCiNg station?
There are several BiCiNg stations in Barcelona, some areas being more populated with stations than others depending if it is an strategic area or not, or if the green parking area has arrived there yet (no green parking area means less BiCiNg stations). To know where these stations are, and if they have free slots or bike, as well as for administrative issues like inscribing of uninscribing, you can visit the website: http://www.bicing.com (only Catalan and Spanish). You can also make use of Barcelona's city map options to locate them.

This system, of course is not free from its own problems, but it is very practical and it has incredibly increased the number of cyclist in the city: in 2002, there wasn't many people cycling, but now it is usual to find lots of people cycling. There is still much way to do, like writing a proper legislation for city cycling, building proper cycling lanes and, above all, teaching the whole population of Barcelona: cyclists (it’s true some people cycle out of snobishness in Barcelona or only because it is supposed to be “cool” now), pedestrians, motorcyclists and drivers to respect each others and behave.

BiCiNg has indeed changed Barcelona and people’s habits in moving throughout the city but what it cannot do is telling us how to act. It is our responsibility to be civic and peacefully cohabitate with the rest of users.
As a BiCiNg user, I’m glad this system exists. Of course I sometimes get mad or angry when there are no bikes at the stations or I cannot park or the bike is halfbroken or the people doesn’t behave. But still, I feel we are at the right track and this will lead more positive changes to the city.

Anna from BCN

Anna (Vienna), send me this article, which appeared in the New York Times, about BiCiNg.
Zoom the image by clicking it and feel free to read it.