After visiting the famous pissing frog of Zaragoza - La Rana Incontinente and - virgen! what have they done to her?....
well after that we arrived at our house by the singing giant.
We spent a couple of weeks with the fabulous people of La Cicleria Social Club, admired their workshop and the work they do. It is a wonderful place with a bikeability scheme, a D.I.Y. bicycle workshop, a cafe with a mini bicycle themed library, bicycle parking for residents, a basement space for events and meetings and....
... lots of colourful rides....
... rides of all shapes and themes around Zaragoza, yes we are definitely here, look...
We went on two rides. The first being one visiting all the empty, abandoned buildings, the biggest white elephant we'd ever seen the Zaragoza Expo site, huge, empty and crumbling, historic buildings waiting to be knocked down to make more space for new flats....
...buildings that had already been replaced by better modern ones.
These giants have found a new use for an old building at least temporarily, there was plenty other things going on there also, nice !
The second bicycle ride was a little more uplifting.A tour to see the remarkable trees of Zaragoza.
Everybody came out to ride, old and young, even the teenagers...
We met Alfonso and Alfonso Junior who are starting up a bamboo bike business, making beautiful, sustainable bicycles http://bambucamposbikes.com/
Here a little video of us all cycling through the park, heading for a tree, a big and impressive one.
And here some impressions from La Cicleria...
Above the sink a shrine to Sheldon Brown....
The house team jersey....
While we were here we learnd about the troubles the Zaragoza cyclists are having with the police at the moment dishing out ridiculous fines to everyone on a bike. We listend in on one of the Pedalea cycling campaign meetings and learned how bicycles aren't allowed to ride in pedestrianised areas any longer, but cars are (??) and how one toddler was fined 200 Euros for riding a tricycle on the pavement... imagine the rest...
And we met one of the founders of the World Naked Bike Ride and heared the whole story of how a drunken dare turned into a worldwide movement...
We're looking forward to going back to Zaragoza on our way to France where we will meet the tour Alternatiba in June. You'll hear more about our Petit Tour Alternatiba Transiberica soon...
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