KARACHI: When the shops in Cycle Market near Pakistan Chowk and Lighthouse sold bicycles for grown-ups instead of children or hobbyists, the city’s roads used to be far less congested than they are now. Instead of frustrated motorists blowing their horns and trying to cut their way through from the wrong side, or screaming out in road rage, you saw them making way for the cyclists. Every other home had a bicycle. Even if one didn’t use it oneself, it would come in handy when sending out someone on an errand to a nearby market, etc.

Cycle repairs are simple and easy on the pocket. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

That was years ago. Who rides a bicycle now? With just about everyone owning a motorbike or a car, you hardly find anyone pedalling away on the roads these days. And most of the shops in Cycle Market cater to children. You see colourful tricycles and little bicycles, even for three-year-olds, with a set of training wheels, of course.

“My first bike! / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi / White Star ”

“I sell a bike with training wheels to a little kid and I am the proudest person after his or her parents to find them bring it back to me a couple of months later with a request to remove the extra wheels as they have learned to ride the bicycle. I remove and even take them back in exchange for some other bicycle accessory that the kid may like fitted to the bike such as more reflectors, new mirrors or an electric horn maybe,” says Shaikh Mohammad Qasim, owner of a corner bicycle shop in the area.

Mountain bike sales pick up during the summer vacation. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

There are shiny new bigger bicycles also on display inside his shop. Most of them are racing or mountain bikes with several gears, etc. Almost all have been imported from China. “These sell better during school holidays. Boys and girls come here after their examinations to get a bike for summer activity. I take care to stock up on various varieties during that time,” the shop owner says.

A bicycle here may cost from Rs800 to even Rs20,000. Asked where one can find the bicycles for grown-ups without gears, etc, the shop owner points to a side lane. Surely, one does come across a few bicycles that once used to be the favourite means of travel of your gardener or laundry man. Almost all are black with one exception in dark green and are priced between Rs7,000 and Rs11,000, depending on the type of seats or accessories they might have.

The standard model, made in Pakistan. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

The manufacturer is Sohrab. The shopkeepers say that there used to be another well-known manufacturer of the standard bike, ‘Peko’, which no longer makes bicycles. Other than Sohrab, some small manufacturers near the Supermarket, Liaquatabad, etc, make their own brands to cater to a very small market. Ahmed Ali, the owner of the shop selling the Sohrab bicycles, says that there used to be very good bicycles made locally here but the import of the fancy cycles from China has badly affected the bicycle manufacturers here.

A happy customer. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi / White Star

Right next to his shop is another with boxes piled up. “That’s how the cycles from China are imported. Then we assemble them here,” says Mohammad Ali, going about his business on the footpath in front of his shop.

Cycle Market would not be complete without repair shops and those selling cycle chains, tyre tubes, air pumps and other accessories. Mohammad Shaukat, who repairs bikes, says that the most common problems he has seen in bicycles is the pedal bearings getting worn out, needing new seat springs, or a change of brake cables and other little things like that.

“Your car or motorcycle may need an oil change and replacing of expensive parts, not to mention fuel to even move, but the bicycle is the most reliable vehicle around that requires very little care or maintenance. It also doesn’t contribute to any kind of pollution,” the repair man says.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2015

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