Ain Bicycles: Design in transport
 
 

This article is part of a series we are running ahead of the Mada Marketplace event to feature the participating vendors.

Before we began this interview, I had a startling confession to make to Karim Abdallah and Dirk Wanrooj, the founders of Ain Bicycles: I’m still learning how to ride a bike. As a child with zero balance, I never could acquire the skill, but it’s something I’ve recently decided to work on as an adult.

In recent years, cycling has become an increasingly popular trend among Egypt’s youth, encouraged by Cairo’s traffic congestion, rising fuel prices and overly crowded public transportation. In the same vein, startups providing solutions to Cairo’s traffic problems have gained momentum, such as the Bey2ollak traffic alerts app, several carpooling initiatives, and alternative modes of transportation, like Nile Taxi. 

Accompanying this is a growing awareness about health and fitness, and so cycling and running groups have exponentially grown in size over the past few years.

Cycling is unique in that it combines both, an alternative mode of transportation that can also become an integral part of an active and healthy lifestyle. In this sense, bicycles are the future — or at least they should be.

Bicycle-enthusiasts Abdallah and Wanrooj are hoping to transform cycling from a recreational activity on Friday mornings when Cairo’s streets are empty, into a serious mode of transportation that people can rely on for their daily commute.

The pair founded Ain Bicycles in May 2013 as the first shop for custom-made bicycles in Egypt where you can either design your own ride or choose from their collection of sleek, practical designs.

News of Ain Bicycles spread quickly, mainly through word of mouth. During their first month, Ain Bicycles made two sales. Wanrooj recalls that he and Abdallah would go shopping for supplies and carefully handpick two or three screws at a time.

“Now we go out and buy a million screws,” he says. With requests for custom-made bicycles constantly rolling in, sales are now up to an average of 20 per month.

“Ain was never anticipated,” says Abdallah. “It just happened.”

Abdallah and Wanrooj were connected through mutual friends due to their love of bicycles. Abdallah wanted to be a bicycle mechanist while Wanrooj, as he proclaims, was practically born on a bike.

Hailing from Holland, Wanrooj has been using bicycles to get around since his school days. When moving to Cairo in 2009, he says, “The first thing I needed was a bicycle.”

Abdallah, meanwhile, noticed the bicycle trend starting in Egypt with the revolution in 2011. With the country practically on lockdown due to main streets and squares being blocked off, cylcing became the most convenient way to get around the city for some.

“People started realizing that bicycles are an easy means of transportation, especially in small neighborhoods like Zamalek, Dokki and Garden City, and especially for younger generations who are engaging and collaborating [on] ideas,” he says.

Way before this more niche audience caught the cycling bug, bicycles have long been used as a cheap and reliable mode of transportation by bread and milk sellers, to move around butane gas cylinders, or to pull the fuul truck every morning.

Abdallah says what’s happening now is a growing trend among what he describes as a subculture that can afford to put more money into pricier models, and this is precisely the customer segment Ain Bicycles is targeting.

Ain’s custom-made creations vary in cost depending on what components are used, ranging from LE1,200 to LE2,500. The two-man team handpicks the parts that go into the bicycle, some of which are imported from Europe, and then piece it all together at their workshop.

Recognizing that cars are also a symbol of social status in Egypt, Ain Bicycles hopes that their vintage-inspired designs and elegant finish will prompt people to view cycling as more than just a recreational sport, and to consider their custom bicycle a good investment.

“100 years from now, [bicycles will be] the only alternative that will still be there,” says Wanrooj.

“It’s more reliable as a means of transportation,” agrees Abdallah. “It’s easier to repair, maintain — it’s not complicated at all. If anything goes wrong with your bicycle, you have the skills to repair it, but with a car, you have to send it to a mechanic.”

Still, they both recognize that there are some obstacles along the road, such as a lack of proper traffic laws and no bike lanes on Egypt’s notoriously dangerous roads. Recently, one bicycle lane was created along a main road in New Cairo, and it wasn’t long before people turned it into a parking lot.  

While other countries take alternative modes of transportation into consideration when designing new urban spaces, Egypt has yet to follow suit with its infrastructure planning.

“There needs to be an institutional focus, but it won’t come from the government because the government has certain ideas about cars. It has to come from the people who should share information and create more knowledge and awareness about bicycles,” says Wanrooj.

Abdallah is hopeful that there will inevitably be a natural shift in habits due to the increasingly intolerable traffic. “Everyone is sick and tired of spending all this time in the car,” he says.

Wanrooj would also like to see an intense and targeted campaign against cars, which he describes as “abusive, loud, destructive machinery.”

Read more about why Mada Masr is organizing a marketplace event here

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