We really enjoyed our tour and especially our tour guide Maria. As promised Steel Donkey does not take you to the Sangrada Familia or other major sites,.. instead you get a glimpse of how real Barcelona citizens may live with some hint as to what recent changes have made to their lives.
Prior to this tour I was unclear how separate a culture Catalunya is from the rest of Spain. Maria did an excellent job educating us and offering a view into the politics and recent relevant Barcelona history. Until we took this tour almost everything we were hearing about happened hundreds of years ago - this tour made it real, and we got to ride some of the nicer routes in the process, to areas we would not have checked out for any other reason.
We particularly enjoyed how Maria would see people she knew on the ride, and take us to multi-generational businesses. It felt like riding bikes with a friend at home as she was a true local telling people that walk on bike paths to be careful and be aware (I wish more people would do that!)