 The Bicing member cards are only sent to addresses in Catalonia in an attempt to prevent tourists from using the system.This limitation was imposed upon the City Council by pre-existing local bike hire companies (grouped under Bicitours) that feared what they called illicit competition from the Bicing system.Bicitours and City Council agreed as well in enforcing a user block of ten minutes to change bikes (that is, when docking a bike, the user is blocked for ten minutes before being able to leave with another bike).