Bicycle School
This year more than 70 children have learnt how to ride a bike with Bike Spain.

La Noche en Blanco
On the 22nd of September, Madrid welcomed the second edition of ‘La noche en blanco’ (The Night in White). Organised by the area of government responsible for the Arts, La Noche en Blanco forms part of a network of ‘Noches Blancas’ in Europe, also including Paris, Riga, Rome and Brussels.

The idea of La Noche en Blanco is to create a open night where the people of Madrid can enjoy the cultural and artistic side of the city in a festive way. To facilitate with the flow of people, many city streets were closed to traffic and Bike Spain was present renting bicycles until 5.00 in the morning, when the festivities concluded.
[ More info ]

Routes in Madrid from the City Council “Discover Madrid”

Adding to the “Discover Madrid” program, the city council have included 2 new routes by bike:

- Surprise Madrid. Every Sunday at 16:00 h.
- Historic Madrid. Every Saturday at 10:00 h.

To sign up for one of the tours, you need to visit the Tourism Office in Plaza Mayor. The cost is 3€ if you have your own bike or 9€ if you rent a bike. You can also reserve your place by telephone, the number of the Tourism Office is 91 5882906/07. The company in charge of the bike rentals is Bike Spain (www.bikespain.info).
If you have any queries, you can also contact them on 915 590 653.

TOUR OF FRANCE. Alberto Contador winner of the Tour de France 2007
Alberto Contador, 24 years old, is the fifth Spanish to finish the Tour de France in Paris with the winning yellow jersey. The Australian, Cadel Evans and the American, Levy Leipheimer, were standing on the podium with him. Cantador also won the white jersey for the best rider under 25 years.

A tour tainted by ‘Doping’.
The doping of kazajo Alexandre Vinokourov, whose analysis after winning the race against the clock, showed up positive, shocked the world of cycling. Michael Rasmussen, was also under suspicion at the time of leading the race. The Danish Federation of Cycling decided to expel him from the national team for not having informed the Anti-doping authorities of his whereabouts while he was training.

LA VUELTA A ESPAÑA
Vigo was the city from where la Vuelta a España 2007 left on the 1st of June, it finished in Madrid on the 23rd of June, 3 weeks later. Russian, Denis Menchov (Robobank) signed up for his second Vuelta a España and finished on the podium accompanied by his Spanish competitors, Carlos Sastre y Samuel Sanchez.

PARIS-DAKAR by bike
The second edition of this adventure starts on the 9th of September at the base of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 10 weeks and 7200 kilometres later it will arrive in Dakar, on the 17th of November.

‘Anillo verde’ Cycling path of Madrid
The mayor, Aberto Ruiz-Gallardón, assisted in the completion of the 64.2 km circuit that circles the city of Madrid and passes by 17 parks. It is hoped that this advancement will set in motion many promises made by the City of Madrid to introduce a system of ‘bicing’ in the city similar to that which exists in Barcelona.

First parking for bikes in Madrid
Gallardon opened the first parking space for bikes next to la Cuesta de Moyano, a space that is now only for pedestrians. The next parking spaces for bikes will be in Cibeles – next to the new town hall, Reina Sofia Museum, Public Library of Villa Vallecas y Matadero Madrid.

The "BICING"
The new service, Bicing started at the beginning of the year
on the 22nd of March
Bicing encompasses a network of stations from where you can loan bicycles and it has proven to be a great success among the people of Barcelona. At the commencement of this new program, 200 bikes were available across 14 stations. In May this was increased to 750 bikes across 50 stations, and in July to 1500 bikes across 100 stations. [ www.bicing.com ]

Critical Mass (Masa Crítica)
The Critical Mass is a cycling celebration that takes place every month in many cities over the world. The aim is to have a greater presence of cyclists in the cities to reduce the negative impacts caused by motorised traffic (noise, contamination and traffic jams).
In Madrid, this celebration is held on the last Thursday of each month.
[ www.masacritica.es/masacritica.html ] [ critical-mass.info ]

Barcelona, each day there are more people getting around by bike
The difference between Barcelona and Madrid is that in Barcelona, each day there are more people getting around by bike. It is anticipated that the bike paths will extend over 200km, almost double the amount we have at the moment

Ronda verde
A bike path network of 60km surrounds the metropolitan area of Barcelona. This ‘green belt’ embraces all of Barcelona.
[ More info]

22@bcn
The design of the project of the new zone of Poblenou, named 22@, anticipates that all of the secondary streets in Barcelona will have bike lanes. [ More info ]

BTT CENTRES of Euskadi
An Euskadi Mountain Bike Centre is a free access area where both beginners and experts can practice mountain biking at their leisure.

The Routes. Each Mountain Bike Centre has a network of perfectly waymarked routes, with at least 100 km of circuits devised for all levels, duly mapped out and waymarked according to their degree of difficulty. Most of the routes pass through forested areas and in this way use is made of the goods and services that the forest provides us with.
[ More info ]

Other BTT Centres

Centres BTT Catalunya.
www.gencat.net/turisme/btt

Sites VTT Francia.
More than 134 areas and more than 46,000km of bike paths.
www.ffc.fr/a_VTT/a_SitesVTT/index.asp

¿What have other European cities done to facilitate the use of bicycles and how have they done it?

In Paris, the government have the objective to reduce motorised traffic by 5% before the year 2010.