It all started with Janice, a 33 year old single mother who works as an ambulance nurse. Janice hopped on her bike one fine morning instead of driving to the clinic as usual. In less than thirty minutes she was at her office, got to see that morning's sunrise over by then busy streets, and enjoyed the journey that made her also feel more energized, productive and motivated to start a long hectic day on the ambulance!
Six months later, we have it all under the paddle! We're a group of four women pushing the pedals every day to bring change. We've admittedly become bike activists, empowering communities to ride a bike, particularly women and young people.
The Discovery
Fast forward back to our first ride which seems to be so long ago. It was indeed, a tame and modest ride around the neighbourhood. Having not been on the saddle for a long time, we felt, nervous, lost and lacking confidence to say the least! But we also felt a rush of muscle memory, as our thighs turned the pedals with energy and self-confidence that reminded us of our long lost independence mostly due to frustrating daily commutes by car.
It was the beginning of Winter, and we had to change our plans many times due to a wet forecast. It wasn't easy to find the time to bike, at first, given everyone's busy work and family schedules. Yet we did not give up! With every stroke we challenged our physical abilities and revelled in the freedom cycling was suddenly giving us back. From the day we achieved cycling autonomy, our worlds wonderfully expanded. Soon enough, the few kilometers within the neighbourhood took us longer and further away to the discovery of a new world!
"When you start pedalling, you acquire a new form of autonomy; it's an escape, a tangible freedom, movement powered from the bottom of your foot, when the machine responds to the body's desire to move and almost anticipates it. In a few seconds the limited horizon is expanded, the landscape moves. You are somewhere else. You become someone else and yet you are yourself as never before; you are what you are discovering" Marc Auge - In Praise of the Bicycle
Longer rides, steeper hills and, bigger challenges followed. Each and every single ride got us to rediscovering ourselves and a host of long-forgotten sensations. Before we knew it, we learned how to shift gears, oil a chain, share the road with cars, claim the streets, find our way after getting lost in the middle of the night and getting back on our feet after falling off our bikes. Above all else, we rediscovered the amazing sensations like the exaltation of a free wheel descent, the sound of the asphalt overrun by the tyres, the feeling of fresh air on our face, wind blowing through our hair and the feeling of raindrops on our skin. All this while mastering the art of cycling in heavy rain as we watched landscapes come alive in a way that they don't usually do, at least to us, on a sunny day....by now we knew we had become stronger!
The Challenge
We felt fearless having come this far, and ready to take the world by storm. Little did we know that a different kind of storm was brewing and soon to come our way! As the World Health Organistion declared a global health emergency, and as the Maltese Health Authorities announced the first cases of Covid-19 our cycle broke!
The world woke up to a new normal that no one could see coming. Despite all the sophisticated and advanced technology, we were left to fight a war with no weapons in hand.
Our first reaction, and as expected, was to follow the local health authority's instructions issued from time to time, letting go off our bikes and stay safely home with our families. Our bike rides slowly became a thing of the past, to aspire to and yearn for once the raging storm would be hopefully over.
But unprecedented times call for unprecedented action, as they say. We might not have felt so tough, to get going but cycling got us to pull the same rope together, and to helping each other when the road got rough. Janice and fellow frontliners needed all the support we could give and all the motivation to soldier on in the difficult times ahead. This was the least we could do to show our appreciation and support for the incredible work they are doing.
We chose not to stay at home! Armed with just a bike we supported our friend Janice and fellow colleagues in fighting the invisible enemy on the frontline. Obviously, we couldn't do their work, but not a single day passed without going cycling together. We went from the occasionally short ride after long shifts on the ambulance to early morning rides before work or to the never-ending ride on days off. What really mattered was to keep their spirits high as they felt anxious, alone and isolated from the community due to their elevated risk category. During this difficult time, cycling has brought us together more than ever before and it empowered us to keep going!
Circumstances worked in our favour. Thankfully Malta did not go down the road to a complete lockdown, and cycling in small groups made us fall within the bracket of what was acceptable and strongly recommended by the Health Authorities.
"Never let a good crisis go to waste" - Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill and cycling never connected in my mind, but this statement of his certainly makes sense to us. Indeed this is what we did.
As we cycled, more people hopped on their bikes and followed suit. Social media helped us play the tune like pied pipers, and many took up cycling in small permissable groups.
Sports connects even in the darkest times. Friends and people we didn't know got in touch. Some just wanted to listen. Others sought advise or support to help them get on a bike and ride! We thought middle aged men and women how to ride a bike and accompanied others to work to show them how easy it was to take a bike instead of a car, empowered girls to cycle and inspired young people to unplug and hop on a bike ... all within the limits and restrictions that COVID-19 had brought so unexpectedly on us.
And as more bicycles wheels whizzed their way in the streets of Zejtun, the whole community moved along. We never saw it coming, but with the benefit of hindsight, this can be described as a bike revolution in the midst of a Pandemic
We never thought of writing our story! But throughout the thousands of stories written during the pandemic we are happy that we have an inspiring one to share. Cycling gave us the opportunity to re think our lifestyles, to create, to feel free and to feel human again, we hope our journey continues to be of inspiration to others.
The world needs a new Renaissance, and as many cities around the world have set bold plans to boost cycling, our ambition is that together with like-minded people we continue working towards a positive cycling culture that promotes liveable cities also in Malta. If we are going to have to re-engineer society after this pandemic, cycling can address many social challenges. We'd like cycling to take a larger social dimension. Cycling is not only about riding a bike instead of driving a car but it is capable of rekindling values of care, kindness community empowerment as well as promote social interaction. Hence, through our initiative ROTA in collaboration with MOVE (ngo) we will continue pushing the pedals to move communities! Our aim is to empower women and girls to take the bike as well as promote the power of sport and the benefits of cycling for the overall health and mental wellbeing of society. Marc Auge once wrote that Cycling is a Humanism. I quote him one more time to wrap up my thoughts here, for now...
"The experience of riding a bike is a fundamental existential feat: we pedal, therefore we are"
More info about ROTA is on https://www.facebook.com/movemalta/
Cynthia Debono
(Founder & Director MOVE Malta ngo)