September Bike Ride - Ride for Peace in Tripoli

It's been a while since I've joined, let alone blogged about El Mina By Bike. Which is quite a shame, as these supposedly bi-monthly events really have a special place in my "Love Tripoli" side, right after "Shoot As You Walk"

But late is better than never, and so like last time, Sura picked me up this morning at 8:30am and we drove off to the meeting point in front of La Sirene in El Mina for September Ride Bike - Ride for Peace in Tripoli. Since we arrived a little earlier than we normally do (blame my nagging at her to be on time for once :-P), we were able to pick out from the better bikes, and I found myself drawn to this red one (which ended up being the nosiest of the bikes, with its helicopter-like rattles, as Sura put it! :-P): 

There's something so good about riding a bike. Personally, riding a bike in Tripoli specifically, brings back memories of me and my brother biking with Dad back when we were living in Canada (hometown to hometown). But other than that, biking brings me closer to Tripoli, which I've been having a love-hate relationship with as of late. Thankfully, our ride led me to the former, to the love side of this city...

Biking on the same paths that I drive on gives the road more meaning. From the starting point in El Mina all the way to the city, to Tripoli, the road, the speed bumps, and even the potholes, it all makes me feel more grounded, more in root with this city, when I'm on it with two wheels rather than four… :-)

Tripoli's Car-Free Day Photo Competition!

Dear Friends & Readers,

I need your help! About my last post, “Tripoli’s Car-Free Day”, there’s this photography competition, and there’s this photo that I submitted for the competition:

I really need your help! Please, Please, Please, go to this link:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=641407498342&set=o.296675003692929&type=1&ref=notif&notif_t=like&theater

and click “like” on the photo. I need to get the most amount of likes among the other contestants (from now till the end of the month) in order to win, the prize being a spanking brand new Canon 500D (more advanced than my current camera!) PLEASE, "LIKE" IT! :-)

El Mina By Bike December Ride

This morning I woke up with a 7:15 A.M. smile, because it was El Mina By Bike’s 1st December Ride! I got up, got dressed, had a quick baguette with Philadelphia, grabbed my sunglasses and keys and drove over to pick up Ymn and her friend Mayssa before meeting up with the rest of the group near the Cornish…

Al Jazeera TV was there, wanting to film us (to air this Friday 10/12/10 @ 2:30PM). And as soon as we got out of the car, a reporter came over to us asking if we were part of the group. We said “Yes!”, and so she asked us to rent our bikes and meet her where the camera was being set up. We did, and she asked us to bike around infront of the camera for a bit and then come close so she could ask us (in Arabic) “Where are you going?” and we’d have to say “بالاسكلة ع البسكلة” (Translation: El Mina By Bike!)

Those 2 Photos were taken by my friend, Taha Baba. In fact, Taha is a great photographer, that I'm going to leave all the pictures in this post to him! Check out two more of his great shots from yesterday:

We biked from El Mina, all along the Cornish, past the BAU, past the Olympic Stadium, past the Beirut/Tripoli roundabout, past Dam & Fares, past Maarad, past El Mina Street, and all the way back to El Mina. Once there, we were taken to a little boat-making workshop where a man (Mr. Mohamad Hamra) not only built boats but also little boat replicas and other wooden souvenirs:

Remember the “El Mina Street Festival” where I bought a little wooden boat and TJ got me a seashell? Well, it turned out to be from the same guy! I also remembered back in November of last year, Ymn, Diala, and I had once gone for a morning jog and came across his shop, where I also bought a rosary with sea-shell shaped beads. This man was quite “a talented craftsman and he told us his stories about the sea, his love of boats, and the untold history of El Mina”…

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! :-)