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El Bicing - Barcelona city bicycles |
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Bicing is Bicycle Borrowing in Barcelona
Bicycles have become a big part of the public transport system in Barcelona. The Barcelona city council launched this innovative bicycle borrowing scheme called “El Bicing.” in 2007 and since become an important part of Barcelona's public transport system. Please note that Bicing is for residents of Barcelona and not for tourists.
 Find Barcelona Bicing website
Map of Barcelona Bicing pick-up & drop - off points
You can also find the bicing bike rack locations by going to the website of the Barcelona online city map www.bcn.cat/guia and choosing transport options in the right menu. Bicing stations and other transport stops like metro stations are added t0 the map.
When Bicing in Barcelona launched in 2007, there were just 750 "bicing" bikes available at 50 pick-up/drop off points in the city located primarily near Metro stations and municipal parking places. By May 2009 there were 6000 "bicing" bikes available at 400 locations and over 100.000 registered users.
The aim of bicing was to
encourage Barcelona residents to make short trips by bicycle in order
to reduce the number of cars on the streets and Bicing has proved to be a fast and financially sound way to introduce the benefits of peddle power to Barcelona residents.
The subscription cost of a bicing card is 30 euros a year (2009) prices for a 1 year period. There was talk of allowing tourists to using the bicing for a period of a week, but this met with opposition from the many private bicycle rental companies in Barcelona so the idea was shelved for the time being.
 The Bicing works like this. A paid up user of the bicing system get a personal bicing card in the mail or at the bicing office. This card is necessary to release a bicing bike from the advanced automatic bicing parking stands that can be seen all over Barcelona.
When a bicing bike is released, the bicing user then has 30 minutes to get to their destination and drop off the bike at another bicing pick up/drop off location. The first half hour of bicing is free and included in the annual subscription price. If the first 30 minutes period is exceeded, there is an extra charge of 50 cents for every additional 30 minutes, until you reach the maximum allowed time of 2 hours in total. After that there is a penalty charge of 3 euros an hour for failing to drop off the bicing bike.
Despite complaints that the system that can be frustrating, like bicing racks being full, bikes not working, problems dropping off bikes, the conclusionis that Bicing Barcelona is a big success. Bicycling is clean, healthy and quiet. An added benefit of using the bicing system instead of your own bicycle in Barcelona is that you do not have to worry about bicycle theft. And you have hundreds of bikes all over Barcelona instead of one.
The online registration and user accounts deters theft of the bicycles, which was a common occurrance in other cities which introduced similar schemes, but with cash payment by users.
Bicing operation times are as follows:
Sunday to Thursdays: Bicing racks are open all day from except from
midnight to 05.00. During these 5 hours you can only drop-off bicing
bikes, not pick them up.
Friday and Saturday: Bicing racks are open all hours of day for both pìck-up and drop-off of bicing bikes.
 The bicing bike of Barcelona have 3 gears, an adjustable saddle and lights that switch on automatically at dusk. The operator of El Bicing is a company called Clearchannel, who also manage successful Smartbike systems in other European cities like Oslo, Stockholm and Lyon. Clearchannel has initially been awarded a 10 year contract for Barcelona.
The Bicing cards are on sale on the Internet and over the counter at the Barcelona Bicing office.. The bicing website (in Spanish and Catalan) has information about current and future Bicing locations and a real time map showing how many bicing bikes and parking places are available at each location.
Find Bicing website and Bicing office address
Find bicycle rental companies Barcelona
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