On Sunday 6th of October, the yearly Bike and Cycling Festival (Festa de la Bici) returned to Barcelona. From 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., about 30 different initiatives inhabited the area around Arc de Triumf and Passeig de Lluís Companys with their stands promoting diverse projects, activities and initiatives on urban cycling and sustainable mobility for all. We participated in the event to raise awareness about bike theft, explain our campaign to the public and place the issue of theft in the agenda of Barcelona’s cycling policies.
One part of the cycling festival was the Bicicletada, a biking caravan that left at 10 am from Carrer Aragó and led on a 12 km route through the Eixample, Ciutat Vella and Sant Martí districts before ending at the Festival at Passeig Lluis Companys. The hundreds of participants had the chance to explore Barcelona in all safety on their own bike, and then stroll around Arc de Triumf while experimenting bike-related innovations, enjoying games and demonstrations, or getting to know new research on the cycling world. This year’s edition of the festival aimed to promote the use of bicycles for all ages and audiences through the organizing of workshops, games and a raffle of bike-related products.
Our Stop Bike Theft project was amongst the many presenting at the fair. Together with our project partners from CUBIC Co-op we distributed flyers and stickers to raise awareness about the issue of bike theft in the city of Barcelona and beyond. More specifically, we informed the visitors about the goals of our campaign: to collect reliable data on the extent and spatial patterns of bike theft in the city, and to build an active community of cyclers exchanging information and reporting theft incidents on the BiciZen platform. We explained the participants of the fair how to get involved as citizen scientists and why this topic is of such high importance. Bicycle theft is chronically underrepresented and understated in the existing data and does not receive the necessary attention – neither from the local police nor from political authorities or city planners. Together with citizen scientists, we want to change this and tackle the issue of bike theft as the crucial problem that it actually is.
During the festival we had the opportunity to speak to diverse cyclists of Barcelona from all ages and occupations – even Barcelona’s major Jaume Collboni paid a visit to our stand and exchanged his thoughts on bike theft with our researchers Jordi Honey-Rosés and Eduard Folch. After having spoken to many participants of the fair, we got confirmed that bike theft is perceived as a common barrier to urban cycling by a large audience.
After the successful event of the Festa de la Bici 2024 we look forward to the next steps of the campaign, upcoming events and further collaboration with (amongst others): Bicihub, Biciclot, Aqui Coop, LHenbici, and AMB.
We are grateful for everyone who collaborated with us and helped during the event, especially Jordi Honey, Eduard Folch, Gemma Simón I Mas, Laura Heckmann, Gerard Castilla, Lola Chavez, and Hèlene Ballart.
The Stop Bike Theft campaign is being funded by the IMPETUS program on Citizen Science.
If you would like to learn more about the campaign and contribute, please reach out to us here.
