02 December 2022
In 1997, Logroño hosted an event that would kick off the EuroVelo project, a network of long-distance cycling routes that cross Europe. It currently offers 19 defined routes and itineraries, totaling 90,000 km and crossing the continent from north to south and from east to west. The EuroVelo 1 runs through Spain, the Atlantic Route that goes from Norway to Portugal; the EuroVelo 3, Pilgrims Route; and the EuroVelo 8, Mediterranean Route. In total, some 2,000 kilometers of marked itineraries.
Looking to the future, the so-called Iberian Route, the EuroVelo 16, is being designed, which will go from Lisbon to Toulouse passing through Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid and Aragón, with a truffled route of Nature Paths and Greenways. In addition, it will have the particularity of including the city of Madrid, the only European capital that to date was outside of these continental cycling routes.
25 years ago the Greenways still had a short journey in Spain, but it was already signed up – with the program of the Spanish Railways Foundation (FFE) and the support of public institutions such as Renfe, several autonomous communities and the Ministry of the Environment – The progress and importance that infrastructures for cycling use were going to have in the immediate future. From the FEF it is pointed out that at the time some countries with a greater tradition of bicycle use began to work very quickly and “it cost us much more for others”, but today there are already 38 countries involved.
In Spain, EuroVelo, whose coordination center falls on ConBici – Coordinadora en Defensa de la Bici, “also notes significant growth, especially in recent years, after almost two decades in which its initial progress was very slow.” At the European level, coordination falls on the European Cyclists Federation (ECF).
On the occasion of this 25th anniversary, the ECF has presented a new functionality on its website that is in great demand by cyclists: the possibility of downloading the GPX tracks of the 17 routes (a file format that allows GPS data to be stored and processed).
Map of the 19 EuroVelo routes.