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Cities, Environment, Hobbies, Inequality, Life and style, Pakistan, South and Central Asia, Women, World news - June 26, 2019

'People think we’re from another planet': meet Karachi's female cyclists

Teams of women and girls are among numerous cycle groups increasingly to be seen on the streets of the frenetic Pakistan megacity

Early on Sunday morning in Karachi, a group of girls are riding loops around an empty stretch of road outside the colonial-era Custom House. At 6am they left the narrow alleys of the old neighbourhood of Lyari, branded a war zone by national and international media after a lengthy and brutal gang conflict. Two hours later they are still happily pedalling away, in ballet slippers and with headscarves tucked under helmets.

“I used to cycle alone,” says Gullu Badar, 15. “It’s nice to cycle here because there’s no danger, no cars. It feels good that there are other girls cycling with me too.”

The ego of our men is very fragile. If someone is trying something new they cannot tolerate it

How apartheid killed Johannesburg's cycling culture

Racial segregation meant cycling lost status in South Africa earlier and more intensely than in the rest of the western world

Cycling Cities: the Johannesburg Experience is published by the Foundation for the History of Technology

“The writer counted, in the space of only four minutes, 93 native cyclists riding past the Astra theatre,” wrote a journalist for the Star newspaper in July 1940. Standing almost 80 years later on the same corner of Louis Botha Avenue at the same time and day of the week – 6.30pm on a Monday – it is hard to imagine. The theatre is long gone and not a single cyclist is to be seen on the car-choked thoroughfare.

What happened to Johannesburg’s once vibrant commuter cycling culture? The dominance of the automobile marginalised the bicycle in many cities around the world through the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s but that process was accelerated in South Africa by apartheid. When policies of spatial segregation forcibly moved black people to faraway townships at the periphery of the city, the distance between work and home increased dramatically and cycling collapsed as an everyday practice.

It may be said of the Johannesburg child that he learns to cycle before he can walk

Members of Johannesburg Amateur Bicycling Club, a white leisure cycling group, in the 1890s

Alexander Township residents ride bicycles in 1957 as part of a boycott of bus services in protest at high fares

Left: two men pose proudly with their bicycles in 1922. Right: 1890s Johannesburg

Workers from a white working-class neighbourhood cycle towards the then city centre

Left: white children’s bicycles at an airshow. Right: Alexandra Township residents discuss the 1957 bus boycott

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'People think we’re from another planet': meet Karachi's female cyclists

How apartheid killed Johannesburg's cycling culture

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