The Sevilla Bike Experience

Before arriving in Sevilla, Spanish Studies Abroad recommended Sevici, the city's bike rental program. Growing up biking around the Twin Cities, I realized the value of being able to commute by bicycle. After looking into Sevici and the accessibility of the bike docking stations, as well as the tentative locations of my classes, I sat down in my Cape Town apartment and purchased a long-term Sevici subscription.

When I got to Sevilla, I saw Sevici bike stations everywhere, and quickly felt great about my membership. I also noticed bike lanes throughout the very flat city, and decided that purchasing the subscription had been a fantastic choice. To be clear, it was, and still is, a great decision. But one month later, I have a daily love-hate relationship with Sevici.

This blog post is entirely about biking in Sevilla. If you want to read a real blog about real biking (across the United States), check out my brother's blog -- it's stellar.

My local Sevici bike station, half a block from our apartment.

My Sevici membership card didn't arrive until a few weeks into my stay. As such, my inaugural bike ride was to attend my first ever Universidad de Sevilla class (Psychology). The bike ride was the most stressful part of that afternoon. To start, the Sevici bikes are quite cumbersome, to say the least. They are heavy. They are tippy and hard to maneuver. When I first got on the bike I felt as though I'd forgotten how to ride a bicycle.

The next factor was the roads. Most of the roads in the city center are cobblestone. If you've never biked on a cobblestone road, that's probably a good thing. It's sketchy. And to add to the challenge of biking on cobblestones, most of the roads appear to be one-ways, and I have yet to figure out which way each road runs. What I think I may have found, though, is that usually roughly six parallel roads run in the same direction (which seems quite counterintuitive and I don't understand in the slightest), making things frustrating when I'm trying to go in the opposite direction.

The next component is the bike lanes. Yes, they run through convenient parts of the city, but mostly through very popular areas. This means that in touristy areas, I'm constantly dinging my little bicycle bell at dozens of pedestrians wandering through my lane. Not to mention the pedestrians that stand in the bike lane to take photos. So it's a constant game of dodging oblivious people and the (very slow) tram that parallels the bike lane. This is what turns a 15-minute ride on Google maps into a 25-minute experience. (And, confession: it is what has made the bike commuter in me hate pedestrians.)

One of many cobblestone roads.

Finally, the heat is a major element of the Sevici adventure. When I arrived in Spain at the beginning of September, I heard that by October temperatures would drop from the high 90s, cooling off for the winter. I'm still waiting for that drop. This means that after every bicycle ride, no matter the time of day or the length of the journey, I always arrive dripping sweat.

Since my first Sevici ride to Psychology class three weeks ago, I've used countless bicycles. My absurd class schedule places me in three different parts of the city for twelve total class periods each week, and unfortunately for me, many of these classes just so happen to coincide with the hottest and sunniest hours of each day. For the first time in my life my backpack has developed sweat stains.

The other thing that I've learned about Sevici is that sometimes the stations run out of bikes. This happens quite frequently, actually, especially at common commuting hours and especially by the Biology campus. Also, stations are frequently full of bikes. Given that Sevici only allows 30 minutes of bike rental before charging a euro, this can be somewhat anxiety-provoking, when returning a bike and trying to arrive somewhere on time. And lastly, sometimes the bikes are broken. 

One very memorable early-morning Sevici ride consisted of renting the only bike available at the station near my house, to find that the seat was broken, and its height could not be raised. So I biked to the next closest station, but found no bikes. With my knees at chest level, I biked eight minutes to another bike station, returned the broken bike, and was timed out from taking a new bike for five minutes. I got a bike, this one with a faulty gear shift, rode it to the bus stop where I was to meet my program for a day trip, and discovered that all of the bike docks in the area were full. Unamused, I biked back several blocks, finally found a station with space for my bike, and ran to the bus stop. My friends got a kick out of the ordeal.

So that's my essay on the hate components of my love-hate relationship with Sevici. To keep the love short: it's much easier to bike to each of my classes, criss-crossing the city, than it is to walk. And it's much cheaper than taking the bus or the metro (side note: the metro runs more slowly than I bike). The bikes really are everywhere in the city, and Sevilla is flat. It also means that I can very easily meet friends who live in other parts of the city, especially when I'm not up for that 45-minute walk. And I guess the heavy and awkward bike lends itself to a bit of a workout, albeit with intense sweat. But overall, being able to hop on a bike is a game-changer.

So would I recommend Sevici? Yes. But I just have to say that it's harder than it looks. Mom and Dad, when you come to visit I'm not sure I'll let you bike; don't want any broken body parts. Jeremy, you can try it out.