Bicycles are an essential part of the Colombian identity: ubiquitous, cheaper and, in some urban communities, often a faster way to get around.
No Colombian city represents the two-wheel experience more than the capital Bogota, where the metropolitan area extends for almost 11 million the inhabitants do not have a subway system and some of the worst traffic jams in the world.
The city has more than 1.1 million bicycles, according to officials and records almost 900,000 bike trips per day. On Sundays and public holidays, more than 80 miles of major roads are closed, a tradition that draws regularly two million people at a time.
“It is the DNA of this city,” said Bogota Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán.
But a series of robberies and assaults on cyclists this year have left many cyclists in Bogota on the edge of their seats. A recent piece of news It is estimated that a bicycle is stolen in the capital every 42 minutes and that small gangs of thieves have targeted cyclists.
“Insecurity for cyclists is at an all-time high,” said Yim Ángel, one of the founders of the Bicycle Collective, an advocacy group. “Cyclists contribute to the environment, to transport, to health, to sport, to recreational activities. But at this moment we do not have the security guarantee to move freely in Bogota. They were scared.”
Cyclists, from everyday commuters to die-hard cyclists, and advocacy groups have called for the city to do more to make the city safer for them, and Galán, who took office in January, said officials are already exploring a series of steps.
While police data shows that bicycle thefts have declined in recent years, the increase in certain types of violent crime in Bogota last year, such as robberies, sexual assaults and car thefts, has fueled growing concerns that the vast city is becoming less safe, even for cyclists. .
Adding to the distress was a series of violent crimes, including the murder of a businessman AND numerous armed robberiesin the wealthier and usually quieter parts of the city.
Mr. Galan, in an interview, said he was concerned that rising fear was pushing people to abandon more environmentally friendly ways of getting around Bogotá.
“There are a lot of people who can make four-, five-, six-block trips from home to work or to go buy something, but today they do it in a car, but they could do it on a bicycle or on foot,” he said. “That’s why safety is a key priority for us.”
David Santiago Cortés Peña, 23, who runs a bike shop in Bogota and was part of a professional cycling team last year, recently embarked on a training ride of about 30 miles to a town outside the city.
Around 5:30 a.m., on his way to meet friends at the foot of the mountain near where he lives, Mr. Cortés said a man jumped out from behind a tree in the darkness. He tried to get around the man, but he said the man shot him, a bullet grazing his eyebrow and forcing him off his bicycle.
As he lay bleeding on the ground, Mr. Cortés said, he saw the man speed away on his bicycle, which cost him $3,500. To pay for it, he had asked for a loan, sold some possessions and asked his older brother to help him.
“It was an effort from the whole family over a whole year to pay it all back,” he said.
He had insurance for his bike, but it had expired in December and he hadn’t renewed the policy. He had also decided that it was becoming too expensive to pay for something that many advanced bikers in town use: a motorcycle stock.
These days, Mr. Cortés uses a borrowed bicycle and said he will only ride it during the day and will hire an escort.
“I’ll end up with no savings,” he said, “but it’s better for safety.”
Luis Fernando Guarin, 37, was not in training when he fell victim. He was doing what many in Bogotá use bicycles for: getting to and from work. He said a trip of nine miles each way that would take two hours by public bus takes half the time pedaling on two wheels.
“It also relaxes me,” said Guarin, who works for a telecommunications company.
He was walking home on a recent Friday evening on a bike path along a main road when, he said, he was approached by four men who jumped out from behind some bushes and tried to rob him. When he resisted, Guarin said, he was stabbed twice in the abdomen before his attackers fled on his bicycle.
He tried to file a police report online from his cellphone while in the hospital and at home, but he said the website for entering such reports was not working. Furthermore he never went to a police station to do it in person. Even if he filed a report, Guarin said, he had little confidence that his bicycle would be recovered.
The city maintains a bicycle registry designed to make it easier to identify stolen bicycles and return them to owners. So far, 400,000 bicycles have been registered, according to Mayor Galán, who would like to see this number increase significantly.
Of the 1,100 bicycles stolen in the city in the first two months of this year, only about 15 percent were recovered, he said. Experts say many thefts could be prevented if cyclists locked their bikes or used stronger locks when not riding.
Mr. Ángel, who helped form the bicycle advocacy group several years ago after the fatal shooting of a cyclist in Bogotá, said his organization postponed two recent protests after discussions with officials about improving the bicycle safety.
The group pushed 10 recommendationssome of which reflect what the city is considering implementing in the coming months.
Galán rattled off a list of possible steps: focus on the five neighborhoods where most bicycle thefts occur; increased police presence on main roads; install more cameras and street lights; make it easier to file police reports; and increase punishment for robberies as a stronger deterrent.
Andrea María Navarrete, the city’s cycling manager from 2021 to 2023, said making cycling safer would also help address a large gender disparity among cyclists and encourage more women to cycle.
“If women don’t perceive risk in infrastructure, it means everyone benefits,” she said.
Galán promised to build on the city’s mobility achievements to become “the bicycle capital of the world.”
“I know a lot of people will criticize this by saying, ‘With so much insecurity, how can you say something like that?’” he added. “It’s true: we have security problems that we are trying to solve. And we need to continue to expand bike lanes and bike paths so people can get around. This city has a very special connection with cycling.”
Simone Posada contributed to the reporting.
