Added to the number of cycling competitions held in the archipelago is the trend of urban cycling, a key piece of sustainable mobility in Europe.
Cycling is fashionable in the Canary Islands. To the success of the VI Edition of the Epic Gran Canaria, which brought together figures such as Mario Cipollini in the south of the island at the beginning of the year, there is now the boom in urban cycling. The RIU company itself (which organizes the event) mentions the Canary archipelago up to two times in its list of “5 best cycling destinations”
Despite the fact that in recent years there have already been some glimpses of this type of cycling that is more focused on sustainable mobility than on sports practice. Apart from cyclists dressed in professional jerseys and doing mountain routes on the weekends, in San Bartolomé de Tirajana and its surrounding municipalities it is increasingly common to see residents going out to do their errands or ride their bikes. Proof of this is the network of bike lanes that we can find, for example, in Santa Lucía de Tirajana.
However, the archipelago has decided to go one step further in this regard. It has done so through the Minister of Public Works, Housing and Mobility, Pablo Rodríguez and the General Director of Transport, María Fernández, who last week, together with various sustainable mobility plans, announced the intention for the archipelago to be part of Eurovelo, a European network of cycle routes.
Eurovelo is a network of cycling routes that connect different countries in Europe by bike. Something in which a priori, due to its geographical location, the Canary Islands would not fit; However, as the counselor pointed out, the archipelago's intention is to be the first Outermost Region to be part of this initiative, which is why they have already commissioned technical studies to adapt bicycle access from the main connection ports of the Peninsula with the Canary Islands.
This initiative, in addition to promoting sustainable mobility, is another attraction for European tourists, who are quite familiar with urban cycling as can be seen in Germany, a leading country in the adoption of measures that favor emission-free mobility or in Netherlands, world reference for urban cycling.
This announcement was made within the European Mobility Week, which concluded yesterday with more than 5000 cyclists taking to the Marítima Avenue of the capital of Gran Canaria in “The Bike Festival”, a festive event that confirmed the islands' will to move forward. towards sustainable and increasingly emissions-free mobility.
