Bicing – Barcelona’s communal bike network

Since March 2007 Barcelona has developed its own community bicycle programme known as Bicing, a grid of some 200 ‘stations’ where more than 3,000 bikes are kept for public use.

The bikes can be inexpensively borrowed from, and subsequently returned to, any station in the system. Users have their own individual contactless credit card that enables them to unlock a bike from the rack, use it and then store it again later.

Bicing is intended to help cover small and medium routes within the city – to encourage cycling and reduce dependence on public transport. For this reason, the use of a bike for longer than two hours becomes quite expensive.

At the time of writing this article, the Bicing system is only available for people with an address in Catalonia; it is not intended for tourists. If you live in Barcelona you can apply for Bicing online.

Next: Barcelona cycling week