Adventures in Bici-ing

The public biking program in Sevilla (Sevici = Sevilla + bici (bike)) is an amazing tool for getting around the city of Sevilla. And I mean 'getting around' in the 'travel from place to place' sense as well as the literal 'go around' (as opposed to 'through') the city sense. (There are no bike lanes in the city center. There are bike stations, but only regular sidewalks and tons of pedestrians. That is to say that you can pick up a bike, but you'll probably have to walk it to a street outside the center to actually use it.) Traveling by bici is faster than walking, faster than taking a city bus and, depending on the time of day, faster than the metro. Using a bici can also be more convenient than taking the metro because, with only one metro line, you are limited in destinations. With the bici you can get more places. There are 250 stations around the city and about 25,000 bikes.

The bike station locations

For just 25€ per year, you can use the bikes whenever you want, 24-7. There is a small catch though: you can only ride the bici free of charge for the first half hour. After that they charge you 50 cents for the first hour and 1€ for the second. Of course, if you park the bike at a station before the half hour is up and check out another bike (or the same one after you return it) you can keep your account charge-free. You can get to almost all locations in less than half an hour. I took a bici from past the big train station to my piso in Triana (a cross-city ride) and I still made it in less than a half hour (it was a Sunday night though, that helped).

You might be thinking, 'Wow, that sounds too good to be true!' and the truth is that you will face some challenges when using the Sevici service. First of all, you will notice that the bici lane may be painted green and have a picture of a bicyclist in it, but it is merely a suggested use for the area, really. The lane is also enticing to pedestrians, dogs, rollerbladers, small children, and people with rolling suitcases, shopping carts and strollers. There are a few reasons for this: 1. the regular sidewalk is textured. The bike lane is smooth and much more enjoyable for pushing things with wheels. 2. the bike lane is green, which I think makes it more inviting than the dull, grey sidewalk. 3. the bike lane is usually less occupied than the regular sidewalk, which makes it a perfect place to walk when you need to pass fellow pedestrians as well as a place where kids have more room to play. 4. dogs just don't know the difference. Sometimes you find it necessary to use the bell provided on each of the bicis to announce to these bike lane dwellers that they are in violation of the bici lane code of conduct. Other times you feel bad that you are on a bici in the bici lane because it is ruining the flow of pedestrian traffic when they have to move to let you go by. You encounter all sorts of people in the bike lane: those that hear or see you coming and move out of the way, those that turn around, see you, and give you a deer in headlights look, those that snatch their kids out of the way before you run them over, those that turn and look at you and keep walking and still others will yell at you for riding too fast, too close, or too much in the bici lane.

There are some places where there is hardly a sidewalk and the bike lane takes over and other places where there is such a small bike lane that you end up riding more on the sidewalk, especially if there are other bikes passing in the opposite direction. Take Calle San Fernando for example. It is a main street in the center of Sevilla, close to the University and the Catedral. It's a hotspot for tourist traffic. I have to ride a bike down it at least twice a week. Can you see the bike lane markers? They are silver and planted on the ground on the left side of the photo. Not only are they hard to see, but because the regular sidewalk is packed with restaurant outdoor seating, there is no other place to walk and you assume you are in the right place as a pedestrian. Not surprisingly, this is the area where I have the most close calls when it comes to bike crashes.

There is also a place in Triana where a tree is growing at an angle and you have to duck to pass by on a bici and another place where there are big bumps and you have to engage the brakes (if they work) and brace yourself for the bounce. The most intriguing and sometimes annoying part of the bici lane is the way it winds and curves around. Some of the corners are so sharp you have no choice but to go on the sidewalk. The Sevici bikes do not have such a sharp turning radius. Sometimes the bike path is one way on both sides of the street and sometimes both directions of bike traffic ride on the same side. This means that you might have to cross traffic (wait for stoplights) twice if you want to follow the bike path as it was designed. It's in these cases that I feel a lot like Billy from The Family Circus, taking all sorts of turns and detours to get where he's going. The obvious way to get where I want to go is to just keep going forward, but the bike lane wants me to cross the street, go up here, around there, cross the street again and finally go forward (I'm looking at you, Avenida de la República Argentina).

And then, of course, there are the normal traffic considerations of biking: cross-traffic: cars, buses and motorcycles, stoplights, stop signs and construction. But none of that can be experienced until you actually get on a bike, which can sometimes be challenging. The first step in using a bike is to find a Sevici station. Once that is done, you have to make sure there are bikes available to rent. Sometimes the bikes are there, but the station doesn't register that they are there. Sometimes there are bikes there, the station recognizes that they are there, but the system won't read your card so you can't check any of them out. Sometimes there are bikes there, but they are unusable or undesirable for a host of reasons. (The bike rider's unofficial code to warn a fellow bicyclist of a broken bike at the station is to turn the seat backwards.) Here's list of the bike issues I have encountered:

1. The chain is broke/off the gears/missing.
2. The brakes don't work.
3. The bell doesn't work.
4. The gears can't be changed.
5. The seat can't be adjusted (so you can't touch the pedals to ride it or you feel silly riding a bike with the seat all the way down).
6. The bike has no seat.
7. A pedal is missing.
8. Something is rubbing on the tire making it impossible to move much faster than your walking pace.
9. The bike has a flat tire.
10. One brake handle is missing.
11. There's too much bird poop on it.
12. The brakes are always engaged.
13. The handlebar covers are missing (meaning the exposed part is metal, making your hands colder/hotter during the ride, depending on the outside temperature)
14. The bike seat cushioning has been partially picked away.

(Side note: with so many bikes and so many people using them, you are bound to have problems, of course. And the bikes and stations are serviced on a regular basis. I have seen the bike service people more than once at a station checking the bikes for problems and loading them onto the repair truck to take them in to be fixed. One morning at the bus station, I was returning my bike and the service guy asked me if the bike I had used was OK, or if there was anything that needed to be fixed.)

And still other times you just simply can't get the bike to be released from the bike holder at the station, even though it appears to be in perfect working condition. But the worst times are when you see bikes available for check-out, but you know that you shouldn't take one because there will be nowhere to park it at the station near your house and you will end up doing laps around the neighborhood looking for a station with an empty bike slot, only to find one at a bike station further away than the one you got the bike from. For your convenience, you can look up the status of each of the bici stations online and nearby bici station statuses at the bici stations themselves. It will tell you how many bikes are available and how many parking spots are available. And if you get to the station and you find it's full, you can log in and request another 15 minutes to find a parking space so you don't get charged for going over your free half hour time limit.

There are 17 bikes available and one parking spot open.

Despite all of the challenges, I have never spent a better 25€ in my life and, in my opinion, there is no better way to get around Sevilla (unless it's raining). You get action, adventure and exercise when you use a bici in Sevilla. Also, you can see a report of where you've been and how long it took you to get there. (The 0h 0min or 0h 1min mean I got a bike, but it wasn't rideable, so I returned it right away.)  If you like action, adventure, exercise and reports, you should try bici-ing.

Memories...