Detox | Biking in Cairo: Conquering the challenge

WHAT’S UP?

In this issue, we hope to encourage you, dear readers, to take a stab at cycling. We know Cairo isn’t the best place for such an activity, and this is why our guide — written by Karoline Kamel, for whom bicycles have been an integral part of daily life ever since she was a little girl — does not aim to offer the usual dos and don’ts when it comes to cycling. Rather, we focus on the many difficulties one faces when they attempt to ride a bike on the streets of our city, and how to defeat them.  

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“We need the purchase receipt for the bicycle,” says the police officer.

“I don’t have it,” I reply.

“Okay, then a picture of you with the bicycle,” he insists.

After a lot of back and forth and around two hours at the police station, the officer agreed to file a report on my stolen bicycle, but would not give us any information about it. We knew the report was in fact just a piece of paper that would be shoved in the depths of some drawer; that he’d only done it to get rid of us. He was annoyed: “You come to a police station full of dangerous criminals and a shitload of cases that we’re working on all day and you want a report on a stolen bicycle, ma’am?”

The story goes back to Ramadan 2019. At the time I learned that three other bikes were stolen on the same day from the nearby buildings, which is strange given that the security presence in our neighborhood is so heavy I can hear the policemen’s walkie-talkies from my window. We can’t even walk down the street without having our phones searched by the authorities. The bikes must have been stolen using a large metal cutter since that’s the only thing that could cut through the metal chain that was securing the bike onto the stair railings. All I had left was half a metal chain, a souvenir from the cunning thieves and a reminder of the safety they enjoy in our beloved Egypt.

A year later, in a weird coincidence, I met one of the people who had been through the same ordeal on the street I live on. According to this guy, Ramadan is peak season for bike stealing around the time of iftar, especially in our neighborhood where a lot of foreigners and young Egyptians own bikes and rely on them to get around.

What’s amusing is that the market where they sell stolen bikes is right next to this very “safe” residential neighborhood. This guy’s advice was to regularly visit the market after the bike was stolen because it’s quite likely that I’d find it there and buy it once more. Only it would probably be stolen again, unless I move or carry it up to my apartment with me every time I use it.

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My relationship with cycling goes back to primary school, when my father taught me and my siblings to ride. He didn’t start us off with the small bicycles with training wheels, he put us on the regular ones right away. This led to a series of bruises and scratches, not to mention our feet couldn’t touch the ground (not because these bicycles were particularly large, but because as a family we all tend to be pretty short).

Eventually, we succeeded, and I speak collectively because success was not reached except with all three siblings managing to ride. For my father, it was really important for both the boys and girls in the family to learn to cycle. My oldest (and shortest) sister was the first to learn, and soon after my brother followed and I was the last due to my aversion to the scabs that the cuts on my legs left. My father and siblings wouldn’t let me hear the end of it.

The bicycle became a part of our everyday life as kids. My sister and I were probably the only girls in the neighborhood that rode bikes. At that time it was more common to rent bikes than own them, which we did until we bought two beautiful bikes. Unfortunately, our beloved colorful bikes were both stolen a few days after we bought them, which, needless to say, was very disheartening. 

In high school, we had a large metal bike which I had to tilt it on its side to be able to get on it due to its size. At its front sat a large metal box that we used to fill with vegetables and groceries on our way back home after we visited my dad at his workplace.

I’m not sure exactly when my relationship with cycling ended but I remember the reason: it was because I had started to grow and it was no longer very appropriate for me, as a girl, to ride a bike. Perhaps also my own priorities changed at some point, and the image I had of myself as a cute and delicate young lady didn’t really go with that of me carrying bread and a giant cabbage on a metal bike.

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I went back to cycling in 2015 as a method of transportation after I moved somewhere relatively close to work. I bought some sports attire and I didn’t feel like I lost a lot of style when I started wearing it, since I can’t wear what I want to anyway. Sexual harassment is a crime practiced so casually and comfortably by the majority of men on the street, despite the heavy police presence everywhere.

Yet getting around Cairo by bike, despite the many difficulties, can be quite a pleasurable activity. From my experience, dear reader, I will provide you with some tips which can make the choice to cycle an easier one. 

First of all, I’ll start with a sentence that I didn’t fully grasp when I first heard it: “Balance is in the mind.” I only realized its true meaning when I heard it several times after. Our body finds balance from the inside, not from our legs or bones. Like the expression goes: “It’s like riding a bike,” meaning you never forget it once you learn.

Cairo’s streets are totally unequipped for cycling. There are no bicycle lanes. There are large speed bumps, cracks, holes and other obstacles that force you to detour with no prior notice, putting you at risk of getting hit by a moving vehicle or bumping into a parked one. Even worse, you can fall and hurt your pride in the crowded street. 

Remember the film Mahatet al-Ons (Station of Joy, 1985), starring Said Saleh and Younes Shalaby, where a guy would throw nails on the street so people would be forced to come into his shop to fix their tires? In real life, there’s no need for such deliberate intervention. The street is already filled with all kinds of sharp stuff that can cause you a flat tire: splinters of glass, stones, nails — the works.

Car drivers don’t really like us, neither do buses and microbuses. This is what caused me to almost get into several accidents. Nobody will defend your right to exist on the street, not even the police officer who is supposed to be there to protect you. Actually, he might be the sexual harasser in the story — I can’t tell you how many times that turned out to be the case.

Not very encouraging, huh? But I'll tell you what — it’s doable. Cycling is truly fun and a great way to exercise, but one that I practice at my own responsibility, and this is my biggest — and pretty much only — piece of advice. 

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“Let’s not cycle tomorrow. They stopped several people who were on bikes. This happened to a friend of ours. They asked to see his ID and looked through his phone. They asked him why he was riding a bike now,” a friend says before our weekly Friday ride.

Last month, in preparation for the anniversary of the September 20th protests, security forces were everywhere. They were randomly stopping defenseless people and looking through their phones. No one could anticipate the “type” of person they would stop, as it was absolutely arbitrary. What would make them suspect a guy dressed in workout clothes and a waist bag, cycling early in the morning? Did they think he was carrying political posters in that tiny bag of his that he would later throw out to the crowds? Did they envision him marching and chanting with his bike carried over his head? Who knows? Nothing is clear.

And so friends have hesitated to cycle on Fridays throughout September. Despite President Sisi’s support of cycling and his famed media appearances on his bike since before he was elected, despite the Ministry of Youth and Sport’s recent “Your Bike, Your Health campaign,” security forces actually terrorize cyclists, making the choice to cycle in heavily-guarded areas — and in September they were many — a risky one. 

Finally, and sadly, after years of cycling on Cairo’s streets, I have to say that the leering comments I hear and the continuous homicide attempts by cars cause me to hesitate every time I consider taking my bike for a ride (I now keep it tucked safely inside my flat). One of the strangest incidents that happened to me recently was when I was harassed by an ambulance driver who kept edging in closer to me on my bike, turning the siren on and off to startle me as I rode. He was laughing the whole time.

In all cases, this weekend is probably a good time to muster up the courage and go for a ride. The weather is just starting to cool down, and here’s another tip for you: Fall is the best season for cycling in Cairo.