Before coming to Barcelona, I had never gone biking through city streets before. I really regret that now, because I now know that biking through a city is an incredibly satisfying experience and I cannot wait to try it in New York. The satisfaction you feel on a hot summer day when the wind is blowing against you as you speed downhill is one of the most gratifying feelings someone can feel.
We first rented the bikes in a rental shop with incredibly cheap prices. It was only ten dollars per bike for four hours, meanwhile just thinking about New York city bikes makes me worry about my wallet. (In addition, we came around fifteen minutes late and were not charged extra, which would never happen in New York.) I went with one of my friends because we were the only ones who knew how to ride a bike, which I found shocking but was happy about in the end. It would have been exhausting trying to keep track of a huge group while biking on actual roads, something that I only realized once I started riding through them.
I am very happy that I decided to bike through city streets for the first time in Barcelona. With my level of skills, had I biked in New York, I would likely be dead or in a coma by now. Barcelona is surprisingly very lax with biking laws and it deserves its position as one of the top cities in the world for biking. The only real trouble I had was when I had to change direction on a huge street with no bike lane, something I do not ever want to even think about again.
We started at Las Ramblas, a touristy section of roads with trees and vendors lining each block. We then visited El Raval, a neighborhood with small streets and tall and narrow buildings, to locate a gelato shop with, in our opinion, the best gelato in the city. The pride we felt after locating it by bike was immeasurable. We continued wandering around the city by bike until we decided to visit near my host family's apartment as there was a pizza shop there. En route, we found a huge biking lane with gorgeous scenery of the city. I was shocked to find out that a 35 minute trip using the train would translate into only thirteen minutes by bike.
Although it made my legs hurt like crazy, I would not trade this experience for any other.
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