It is hard to keep my eyes on the road as I whirl through Valencia. One enormous sculpture-like building towers to one side and then another. The streets are filled with crowds of people on bikes, electric scooters and on foot all scurrying about their business. And there are cars-many cars. I have become a country bumpkin over the last few weeks cycling and this could very well be a recipe for disaster. All this distraction and seeming chaos could spell one big wipe out—but it doesn’t.
The infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians in Spain unbelievably excellent. All through this busy metropolis, there are wide separate bike lanes complete with multidirectional sides, their own stop lights and clear ways around the most forbidding obstacles. When a bike does need to cross traffic, the cars stop immediately, there is no antagonism, and more then once, I defensively waited for a car to pass in front of me and they simply wouldn’t budge until I went.
That is not the end of it either. Throughout the country side, there are perfectly maintained service roads for bicycles next to all the major routes. There are also beautiful caminos connecting many of the smaller towns that were built for religious pilgrims, but are now used by all who chose to move without engines from place to place.
I have spent days on end biking on the smoothest of roads with absolutely no traffic for hours and hours. Sometimes five vehicles will pass me in a day. It is dream like.
If that is not enough, if you do find that you have to share a road with cars, there is a law that cars need to give 1.5 meters of space from a cyclist, even if the cyclists are riding two abreast! I have been told that the police take this law very seriously.
Cars come second here. It is as simple as that. The country has definitely prioritized health, appreciation for the natural beauty and the environment and I have never felt safer or more welcomed as a cyclist anywhere.
I do have to add though, that I still have found myself off the beaten (or cycled) path several times. I think all this safety gives me more freedom to explore and I have followed many of my bicycle apps more whimsical suggestions just to see what there was to be seen, with the confidence that I can always return to a more modest route. These pictures are some of my favorite “roads”.
I have made it to Benicasim, just 200 miles south of Barcelona. The Mediterranean is beautiful, but touristy and expensive, so after a day or two along it’s coast, I will head back up into the mountains and the old country. Maybe I will hear some Catalan—I hope so.
That’s it, we’re just gonna paint the pavement in Portland like that and make people pay attention to cyclists!