El Mina By Bike 24/10/10

I just got back from “El Mina By Bike – Autumn Ride”, which was organized by the “El Mina By Bike” Group that I had heard about through Facebook. As it states in their group description, they’re a “group of bike lovers seeking a stress-free lifestyle, a cleaner and health(ier) environment, and (a) cheap (means of) transportation!”. Their aim is simply to “create a bicycle friendly city… raise awareness and introduce the concept to the residents and encourage more people to use bicycles in their daily movements.”

I’ve known about “El Mina By Bike” and the biweekly tours that they organize but I’ve never had the chance to go, until today. And I’m really glad that I did go! Sunday mornings are blissful in Tripoli and the roads we took (from El Mina to Maarad, and back again) were as calm as ever:

There was one hardcore biker with us, biking on one wheel and doing all sorts of tricks. He even got some kids to lie down on the street and he’d jump over them with his bike:

On the ride back, I noticed there were special white lines pained on the side of the sidewalk, which turned out to be special routes for bicycles! And if I’m not mistaken, it was because of them that the local authorities had recently created those lines... (GREAT! :-)