Holding on ‘til Bournemouth: 10 months of cycling in Andalusia

Spain is a peculiar country for cyclists; a cruel divide between thankless highways with nary a cycle lane in sight and beautiful, delineated tree-lined cycle paths in the cities that could bring themselves to it. In this regard, it’s not a far cry from the state of the UK – except many a British town, most notably my hometown of Ipswich, made a questionable half-effort to make the town cycle friendly, with paths flanked by parking and irritatingly necessary “shared spaces”. In Spain, they either go the whole way or they don’t bother. Why might this be? How can my local bicycle repairman help us get to the bottom of things? And why did I spend almost a year swerving out of the way of pedestrians, goats and a lone chihuahua? Allow me to answer at least two of those questions, and maybe the third if you’re feeling lucky.

A good place to start would be clearing up the nonsense title; as any budding geographer will tell you, Bournemouth is famously not located in Iberia. Rather, it was one of the former haunts of my local bicycle repair man. He told me the story of how, on his first visit to the UK, he took his bike with him – naturally. His friends intended to travel from Southampton to Bournemouth by bus, but Juan – ever the opportunist – decided he could get by without, cycling vigorously up to the bus as it pulled away and then holding on for dear life, for more than thirty miles. It was the 80’s, remember. Juan now sells bikes all around the world and consults bike shops on how to improve their business, but he can’t stop thinking about British cycle contraflow.

He told me of his last visit to London. What he appreciated weren’t the Quietways or the Superhighways but the streets where all vehicles went one way and cyclists – only cyclists – could go the other way. This made getting around a lot easier and safer, he said; especially given it’s not something they have in Spain. There’s many a one way road where there’s enough space for cyclists to go against the flow of traffic, but if the Spanish rozzers catch you doing it, there’s some tough sanctions. One such road was the one I lived on. What would be reasonable in the UK becomes unreasonable in Spain, because “culture” is not simply language, customs, food or tourism; it is ingrained, into every inch of our cities; each law that governs them an exemplification of a new status quo.

In this respect, Spain is for the most part radically different, because cycling on the pavement is hardly the taboo it is in Blighty. For one, most pavements outside the medieval centre are almost unbecomingly wide, meaning there’s more than enough space for a few pedestrians and bikes at the same time without any trouble. Officially, it’s totally illegal, but there’s a reason why almost all of the cycle paths in Seville were retrofit onto the pavements; it was simply the best option when the pavement was already more than large enough for everyone using it.

However, this provoked an interesting issue; if the cycle path is level with the pavement, it's more associated with pedestrians. Some might say this is good, because it encourages cyclists to travel at a more leisurely pace and also helps them disassociate themselves from the hustle and bustle of the main road. I’d agree, but a pavement-level cycle path that isn’t actively separated from pedestrians can easily be overrun by them, either because they’re not looking where they’re going, or because the cycle path is simply better placed in the context of their journey. You can refer back to Vehicular Privilege if you need to be reminded why it’s vital cyclists are allowed to maintain momentum; if pedestrians are getting in their way willy nilly, that right is taken away. Spanish pedestrians expect suburban cycle paths to be totally empty, because they often are.

A similar point stems from the fact that, despite a largely well integrated series of cycle paths, some Spanish cyclists (usually the sort to wear lycra and a fancy helmet) still feel at liberty to use the main roads. This is understandable if you’re looking to travel extremely quickly, but it almost feels like these cyclists are fighting for a tight, dangerous space when they’ve already been allocated a much calmer one elsewhere. It’s not as if cycle paths in the city are so busy that they don’t let you get up to speed; much the opposite. On helmets, actually, most Sevillanos don’t bother. It’s almost totally unnecessary when the risk of being hit by a car is effectively nil. 

In this regard, it seems clear enough that a system which puts cyclists at ease and sets low barriers to entry will see more people cycling. Casual cycling in Seville is the norm, not the exception; the reverse is true in many a British city. Of course, it’s worth bearing in mind that the steps Spanish cities have taken are not steps necessarily available to the UK; when Spain developed its urban areas in the latter half of the 20th century, they made roads and pavements so wide that retrofitting cycle paths was a no-brainer. Even the New Towns of England didn’t achieve this, aiming for cycling ascendance but realising a motor car boom instead. Even if we’ve done innovative things with our cycling infrastructure, the fact is the history of British suburbia doesn’t lend itself to travel on two wheels.

So why might this cycling culture be different? To answer that, I have to tell you about the pedestrians, the goats, and the lone chihuahua. The cycle path to my university was rather excellent, for what it’s worth. Largely flat and obstacle-free too; no funny traffic crossings or U-turns through parks. There was only one sharp incline up a bridge over the motorway, which is where I encountered the chihuahua. Despite my indiscriminate use of the bell and flashy light, the chihuahua’s owners couldn’t have cared less. It was just the same with pedestrians on the cycleway, or the goat-herder on Seville’s outskirts. Even if the law bans a whole racket of cycling misdemeanours, it bans just as many that Spanish pedestrians do on a daily basis. Jaywalking, for one. The conclusion here is clear as a Seville day: the laissez-faire attitude to travel in general makes a cyclist’s life far easier in Spain, so long as accommodations are made to protect them from other road users – lest we forget that motorists also take more liberties.

By way of conclusion, I’d like to ask a question. Why do we always cite the Netherlands when we look to Europe for how to develop our cycling infrastructure? Yes, it’s by far the best contender, but it’s subject to a whole range of conditions that simply don’t materialise in any other country. Hugely dense metropolises linked by straight, flat, modern roads with relatively low traffic. Spain’s empty plateaus and isolated cities require something a little distinctive. Every country provokes different solutions to individual problems; we’d never forget that in economics, nor in public health. So why do we divert when it comes to town planning? After all, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen a goat on a British cycle path in some time.