Llorenç López-Urizarna Cuevas: "There are many people who go by bike every day and are invisible"

Vic / Santa Eugènia de BergaEvery day, whether it's cold or a heat that cracks stones, more than a hundred residents of the Remei neighborhood in Vic pedal to Santa Eugènia de Berga to work at the slaughterhouse. They don't wear jerseys or cyclometers. The bicycle is simply the vehicle that allows them to arrive for early morning shifts and return home at odd hours. It's a daily scene that goes unnoticed, but it explains a large part of the area's reality.

El Remei is Vic's most diverse neighborhood and one of the most densely populated: almost half of the population is of foreign origin. Over the last few decades, it has grown at the pace of Osona's meat industry, and today it brings together residents of very different origins. This diversity brings social challenges, but it has also turned the neighborhood into a laboratory for community innovation.

Since this spring, a new space has been beating in the heart of El Remei, aspiring to become the meeting point for everyone who moves by bicycle in their daily lives. Ciclika is simultaneously a shop, a repair workshop, and a circular economy project that recovers bicycles to give them a second life. Behind the counter at number 9 on Josep Tarradellas avenue are Babacar, Hicham, Juliette, and Llorenç. “Ciclika is a project driven by Fera Ferotge, a social action cooperative, to make the circular economy a reality in the territory and promote socio-labor insertion for people through cycling,” says Llorenç López-Urizarna Cuevas (Granollers, 1995), the project coordinator, with whom we will chat while we pedal from El Remei to Santa Eugènia de Berga.

Circular economy

The new shop allows you to donate bicycles you no longer use so they can be reconditioned and sold secondhand at an affordable price. It is also a place to learn how to repair them or to find that last-minute part you need before heading out. Built with recycled wood, the space is open and bright, an aesthetic that breaks with the image of a traditional mechanical workshop.

The initiative began with various training sessions at La Reciclaria, the old car workshop that is now the headquarters of La Fera Ferotge, but it soon became too small and eventually took shape as a project with its own identity. “Our mission is to offer possibilities and autonomy. We are in a neighborhood where many people commute every day, at all hours, by bicycle –explains Llorenç–. There are many people who cycle every day and often we don't even consider them cyclists. They are the ones who use Vic's cycling network the most, and yet, they remain invisible”.

Even the social economy entities themselves acknowledge that they have had to change their perspective. If during the first Bicycle Festival of Vic last year, this group was left out, this year it is planned that they will be part of it. The imprint of bicycles is visible throughout the neighborhood: parking spots full of bicycles chained on every corner, many without seats, others with patched-up parts or wrapped in tape, almost all marked by the wear and tear of daily use. “Many of these families live in apartments with shared rooms and the bicycle is their only means of transport –explains Llorenç–. They often cannot take it upstairs because there is no elevator or simply because it doesn't fit”.

Theft of bicycles and parts is a common problem, and Ciclika points to the lack of secure parking as one of the major pending challenges to promote more sustainable mobility: "Every day people come into the shop with very precarious bicycles and a sense of urgency, and they tell us: 'I can't afford to be without a bike for a single day, not even for a few hours, because I wouldn't get to work.'"

From cycling to mobility

It is a very different reality from the one Llorenç himself experienced. He grew up in a sports-loving family, and it was his mother, Montse Cuevas, who started, beginning triathlons in her forties. “I started cycling from competitive cycling and ended up discovering everyday cycling – she reflects–. Over the years I have understood that cycling is much more than sport”.

Now, from Ciclika, they open their doors to everyone who understands pedaling in this way, at a time when it is increasingly difficult to find non-specialized workshops for athletes. As Llorenç says, “a bicycle that seems finished can still have many years of life”.

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