Madrid gave big city energy: lots of cars, lots of people, in all directions. And an obligatory big-city sprinkling of two-wheelers: present but relatively uncommon in the city centre, synonymous with the lack of dedicated bike paths. The paths that did exist were paved ambiguously, weaving through pedestrian walkways and motorway roads alike. Walkways on main streets were very wide and spacious — but dedicated purely to pedestrians.
I felt micromobility sat closer to the road, alongside cars — although here it wasn’t terrible since speeds were mostly capped at 30km/h, and vehicles weren’t overly keen on passing. Navigation on Google Maps was smooth, and signage was also adequate. Overall it wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but we didn’t use two wheelers much for different reasons.
WHERE ARE THE BIKES?
When I visited Madrid, Dott only had 80 bikes in circulation. I saw one every day — so they were present, but I never took one. Neither did others: In my week there I didn’t see a single one in motion. The one time I did want to use our bikes was when the journey took me outside of the ride zone. Which, by now you and I both know that’s a big no-no: I knew the woes of pushing a slowed-down, heavy bike.
Madrid, like Sevilla, also has docking stations for their city bikes, called Bicimad. But unlike Sevilla, the docks were always empty no matter where we were in the city. Over the course of my week I pieced together bits and pieces of conversations and learned about a couple of things that resulted in the empty docks:
First, the city of Madrid installed a bunch of docking stations, but ended up with too few bikes to fill them. Second, they had old and new bikes but they weren’t interoperable — so new bikes could “dock” at stations, but couldn’t` actually charge. Third, the bikes are free until July — 2023 so lots of people have just “stolen” them for personal use. Finally, as a user I tried setting up an account… five times. My friend got their account, but couldn’t get their payment to work. I never got my verification code, never figured out what this other system that kept showing up had anything to do with me… I’m actually not even sure what state my account is in now, whether I’d be able to take a bike the next time I visit or not.
After 10 minutes we gave up and walked to a Voi and Lime scooter, the closest two-wheelers nearby. Public transport where we were was sparse, and walking wouldn’t get us to our appointment fast enough, so we didn’t have any other option.
Inexplicably, like Malaga it also felt more natural to take a scooter than a bike. There were more scooters available most of the time, anyhow (though also scarce). When my friend didn’t have the right app downloaded, I would just open two apps: one app for me, one app for my friend.
But outside of this occurrence I never ended up really needing two-wheelers, nor used them thereafter. Again generally speaking I didn’t see much shared mobility when compared to the amount of private cars and pedestrians.
Instead, we — and it felt like the rest of the city too — almost exclusively used the metro combined with walking. Madrid’s metro was wide-reaching, reliable, super affordable (0.6 euro for any ride within the city), and everything we needed was walking distance (<10min) from any metro station. And on top of that, why pay 5 euros to get across the city, when you can pay 0.6?
THE CAVE
Because I arrived in-between our operations (ramping up from less than a hundred, to thousands of vehicles), I had the unique opportunity of seeing not one but two warehouses — although both relatively empty, they were ready to be filled.
Our new location was in an old rental car maintenance warehouse. Fitting, I thought, since our mission is to free our cities [from cars]. I took it in from the second floor office: it was a big, hollow, rectangular space. I got a little rush of exhilaration just imagining the fleet of red and blue colouring the grey.
This was in stark contrast to the first “warehouse”, which was much, much, much smaller. Our team called it the “cave”. It was really just an inconvenient parking spot located centrally in Madrid – just large enough for the small fleet of bikes we were running at the time. It was reminiscent of Silicon Valley garages, the MVP before the rocketship.
Tarik — at the time of visit, our only man on the ground — laughed alongside our incredulity. He walked us to the far end of the garage, where there was another parking spot for his work bench and the battery cabinets. We skipped passed a second parking spot where an old car lay covered, collecting paraphernalia and dust. The third spot, hiding behind a staircase Harry-Potter-style, was where broken bikes would wait for fixes. In these two parking spots, Tarik single-handedly managed the entire Madrid bike mini-fleet.
This, to me, was the real deal. It wasn’t shock wasn’t from “lack of professionalism”. To me: This is how it starts. How often are you face to face with the real grit outside of autobiographies and interviews? How often do you see the birth of a warehouse? I was in awe of the reality, to be witness to the beginning.
THE ONE MAN SHOW
We went on a drive to witness our on-street operations. It was a lovely May day, sunny with a comfortable breeze. Tarik drove us in an impeccable new little van (in stark contrast to the large, tired vans I saw in Malaga). While he loaded in the first bike, he told me how he once famously stored 30 scooters in a van of the same size. He secured bikes with bungee cords, just like I saw the team do in London. He carried a toolbox with him in the truck so that he could fix bikes ad hoc, an initiative I hadn’t seen in other markets yet. It was clear Tarik was proud of his work in the micromobility space, and I was happy to be audience to his exuberance.
Even without the juxtaposition against the pleasant spring day, it’s clear on-street operations is difficult work. Tarik hunched over in the small van while moving the heavy bikes, but he worked with such ease that I thought I’d try it out myself. I, very ungracefully, completely floundered. I felt like I was watching an Olympic diver splash into the pool with ease, thinking ‘oh I could do that’ and very much belly-flopping instead. Tarik navigated the roads of Madrid with equal grace, guided only by his memory amongst the one-ways and winding streets, to spots he knew where bikes go to die based on experience. Time and time again he fooled me into thinking the job was easy.
When we stopped by the Parque de El Retiro, I had the lovely user experience of picking up a vehicle in a no-ride-zone by accident, only to find that I wasn’t allowed to end my ride until I rode to a parking spot much further away. (I still need to file a bug.) Pooh!
Between tasks I asked Tarik what his craziest experience was on the job. He told me he chased a van with a stolen bike 100km out of Madrid, only finally getting the thieves to drop the bike by remotely triggering the bell enough times, and picked it up when they stranded it in a deserted field.
Thankfully, this was at a previous operator.
Part 1: Intro & Seville
Part 2: Malaga
📍 Part 3: Madrid
🛴 Part 4: Paris
Part 5: Not the End
Tour de Dott Takeaways
