ON YER BIKE

Ever see a mermaid on a bicycle?

We are spoiled for choice when it comes to getting around Barcelona, there is the Metro (underground), and the buses with the super cold air condition, trains , a couple of cable cars and three funicular. If you like being taken for a ride there are the taxis, and for the tree-hugging fitness freaks there is El Bicing.

 

El Bicing’s fleet of red and white bicycles first hit the carrers and ramblas in 2007, when there were just 750 vehicle and 50 El Bicing stations; today there are 6000 bikes and 420 locations.

A €30 annual subscription buys you a Bicing card which allows you to take a bicycle from the rack. You can ride it for half an hour without additional charge, and it is 50 cents per 30 minutes for up to two hours, after which the bicycle turns into a pumpkin.  Well not really, but you do get stung with a penalty charge and if you do that too often you will be banned and sent to languish in the pit of naughty bike-hoggers.

The racks freeze up between midnight and 5 am, to prevent drunks from trying to ride them home, two up with a mate on the handlebars, presumably.

But here’s the controversial bit. Unlike London’s "Boris Bikes" which are available to anyone with a credit card, El Bicing is only available to Barcelona residents; visitors still have to go to the tourist rental companies, who argued, successfully, that it would be unfair for a state run enterprise to put them out of business. I get that, but it also seems sort of sad that visitors are not able to access what is become a new Barcelona icon. 

 

Of course you can always choose to look like a complete twat and rent a Segway. 

Semi-relevant anecdote: I was once nearly knocked over by London Mayor Boris Johnson, who, with limbs akimbo, was cycling  down Charing Cross Road in a most terrifying manner.