Five Bike routes you can do on your own in Barcelona

Five Bike routes you can do on your own in Barcelona

Having concluded Barcelona to be a safe city to bike there is nothing holding you back from renting out a bike and just pedaling around to see what this beautiful city has to offer.

Touring by yourself gives you the opportunity to get familiar with a region and figure out how its systems work. It also provides you with the opportunity to do things at your own relaxed pace and at the same time boosting up your confidence;

In an effort to go green, Barcelona has expanded its number of bike lanes and thus this provides you with a variety of possibilities to choose from. To guide you in this large maze of biking lanes, here are the five bike routes you can do on your own in Barcelona;

How safe is riding a bike in Barcelona

1. Coastal Route

Cycling along the beach – Unsplash

The beautiful Barcelona beaches are not just for swimming, busking and tanning, but also a great spots to have a relaxed, fun and exciting biking experience. Enjoy the crashing wave sounds, soak in some sunshine, appreciate the cool ocean breeze and take in the magical beach scenery as you pedal along the Barcelona Coastal Route.

Coastal Route or the Maritime route will take you from the Mirador de Colom, a 1888 tribute to Christopher Columbus designed by Gaietà Buïgas, all the way to Port Fòrum, the largest dry marina in Catalonia, and back. This route is characterized by a 6.2 miles (10 km) bike path that will take you to seven beaches along the Barcelona coastal area.  

The first beach you will come across is Sant Miquel, one of the busiest and oldest beaches on the Barcelona coast. It is located in front of the Plaça del Mar and takes its name from the church of Sant Miquel del Port, built-in 1755.

Your final destination will be Llevant Beach, one of the recently created beaches being opened in 2006. Llevant is Barcelona’s easternmost beach just as its name suggests, ‘llevant’ means ‘east’ in Catalan. You have the option of either stopping and relaxing here or continuing with your journey on to the neighboring city of Badalona.

This route can be enjoyed all year round because Barcelona’s weather tends to be sunny and humid. Also, many of its beaches offer flat, pathed bike paths that follow the shoreline and run for miles on.

It is a journey that you can do by yourself because you simply follow the bike path along the beach and reverse to get back to where you started. The difficulty level is easy, and the journey will take you roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes.

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2. Tourist Route

Cycling through the neighborhoods of Barcelona – Wikimedia Commons

This is one of the best bike routes to take if you are new to Barcelona, as it will take you to the must-see attractions within the city. The tour will introduce to Barcelona’s art, culture, landmarks and so much more, giving you some insight on what makes this beautiful city special and why it is one of the most visited cities in the world.

Your journey will start off in Plaça Catalunya, a square that separates the districts of Ciutat Vella and the Eixample. Steeped in rich history, Plaça Catalunya is the heart of Barcelona. Then you will proceed on to the passeig de Gràcia where you can enjoy some of the city’s famous Modernist marvels, including the works of Antoni Gaudí’s.

A major highlight you will visit along this path is the Sagrada Família, a breathtaking church. This church is famous for being a testimonial to Gaudí’s unique style of combining elements of Art Nouveau, Catalan Modernism and Spanish Late Gothic design.

At the end of your journey, you will end up back again passeig de Gràcia by connecting on to plaça de Tetuan after visiting the Arc de Triomf, an arc that welcomes visitors to the beautiful city of Barcelona. The turning left on Gran Vía until you join passeig de Gràcia.

A challenge one may encounter is at the end of your journey when you try to go down plaça de Catalunya and Les Rambles. This is because there are no bike lanes along this path, and it is highly congested with people.  

The route is easy to navigate because it is well documented both online, and you can also purchase a map with the path highlighted from any shop in Barcelona that provides maps. As the route covers the main attractions in the city, be sure of some company along your journey. Its difficulty level is easy and will take you roughly 2 hours to complete.

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Book with us:  Barcelona Highlights on Electric Bike Tour

3. The Collserola Route

A man stopping to take appreciate the beautiful landscape – Unsplash

This option does not have a cycling lane parse, but rather a cyclable route that offers one of the most stunning nature views in the whole of Barcelona. In addition to some exceptional flora and fauna views, at the top of the hill you get an exceptional areal view of Barcelona.

The Collserola park is a mountain range you see topping the city of Barcelona, located between the rivers Besòs and Llobregat. This mountain range covers over 8,000 hectares, making it one of the largest green spaces in a metropolitan area in the entire world. Along it there is the “Carretera de les Aigües” (Water Road), a cycling path that follows the ridge Serra.

You can start your journey at the foot of the mountain range. Along the way, you will be surrounded by flora and fauna that is typical of a Mediterranean mountain range near the sea. The park is estimated to have a population of 10,000 million trees and more than 1,000 species of plants.

Apart from the beautiful nature surrounding the park, your first stop will be Poble Espanyol, an open-air architectural museum. The museum was built for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition as an exhibit of the architecture and towns capes found in different places of the Iberian Peninsula, mostly from Spain.

Continue to the Estadi Lluís Companys formerly the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc and Estadio de Montjuic, which was built for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The stadium also hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics and 1992 Summer Paralympics.

Continue with your climb a little further and enter an enchanting Botanical Garden that seems to make your wildest fairy tale seem true. The Jardí Botànic de Barcelona is covered with 4 hectares of Mediterranean plants from around the world.

You can take this tour on your own because you simply have to follow the cyclable pathway along the mountain. Its difficulty level is relatively hard, and you definitely feel some effects on your leg.

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Book with us: Barcelona Bike Tour in Half-Day

4. Montserrat Route

Cyclist standing with his mountain bike on top of cliff looking at the sunset – Unsplash

This is the best route to awaken and rejuvenate yourself spiritually. No only does this monk mountain off exceptional breathtaking nature views of Barcelona’s countryside, stunning eagle-eye’s views atop the mountain and beautiful architectural works of the monastery, but the mountain is full of supernatural stories of how both children and adults experience visions dating back to the 12^th century.

Montserrat is a mountain located north-west of Barcelona. The history of this mountain dates back to 880 when a group of shepherd children saw a bright light descending from the sky in the Montserrat mountains. At the same time, these children heard angels singing, and the music filled their hearts with unfathomable joy. For a while, the family member of the shepherd children experiences the same when they visited the location.

Finally, the religious leaders of the community explored the cave within this area, and they discovered an image of the Virgin Mary. From that moment on, the cave became a holy sanctuary for religious pilgrims. Today the site ordained a Holy place and people can visit the Holy Grotto and see first-hand where these events took place.

An added bonus of the 49 km climb is the opportunity to listen to the famous Basilica choir boy performances of Gregorian chants and other genres of religious choral music.

In terms of difficulty level, this cycling route is hard, however, you can embark on this journey on your own as the route is self-explanatory. With the aid of an electric bike, your journey can be made easier.

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Book with us: Barcelona Highlights Bike Tour

5. Parque Natural del Garraf

Mountain biking – Unsplash

Escape from the everyday city life and enjoy some quiet and peace in nature by cycling within a space whose purpose is preserving a natural landscape and environmental diversity against a fast-tracked urban development.

Parque Natural del Garraf is a 12,820 hectares protected natural area located between the Bajo Llobregat, Alto Panadés and Garraf regions, in the southwestern sector of the Catalan coastal range. It is covered with limestone hills which has eroded over time to form caves, potholes, sinkholes, and limestone pavements.

The area is mostly covered with Mediterranean scrubland, with animal and bird species that adapted to these particular harsh conditions. It offers some of the most popular Barcelona Mountain Bike trails that you can explore on your own.

In general, the park is mostly used to enjoy the natural scenery. The only buildings within the park are the masías (farmhouses) that were linked to agricultural activity.  

The most popular of its trails according to online reviews is the Garraf – Vilanova i la Geltrú vía GR®92, which takes you through a 21.6 km long with an elevation gain of 603 m trial.

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Book with us: Barcelona Bike Tour

If you’re considering touring the city’s beautiful places by bike, check out our available tours in Barcelona and get peddling!