Abiir’s story: ‘Cycling gives you freedom’

Abiir lives in Easton in Bristol and has four young daughters. She spent her childhood in Germany, and is now a keen advocate for increasing cycling in the Somali community.

When I think about walking and cycling it seems more natural than like an activity. It does keep you physically active I guess, but I don’t see it as something you do separately. I just walk or cycle everywhere I need to go. For me being active is not just to lose weight or to be healthier, it makes me a happier person. It cheers me up and I have more energy.

I’ve always really enjoyed cycling. We lived in a small village in Germany and there was just one park so there’s only so much you can go there. Cycling was the only fun thing to do and we had these amazing areas where we could cycle on separate paths. Our parents never used to check where we were, we went quite far and it gave you freedom. That’s the word, cycling gives you freedom. You can go wherever you want, you don’t need money or a bus ticket or nothing. You just need your bike and you can go.

I only recently started cycling again. I walked a lot but I hadn’t cycled for 12 years, the whole time I’ve been here in the UK, and I had never done road cycling. I thought it would take a long time to learn again and one of my worst fears was I was gonna fall down, but I didn’t. I didn’t! I never thought it would be that natural and easy. I started after I went on a community cycle ride with Zoe Banks-Gross. She’s a cycle instructor in my local community. She motivates people because it’s so natural to her, she makes you think you can do it too.

I feel like cycling has changed my whole life. I have four small children and I was stuck at home. But when I was cycling to meetings it was a whole different life, an active life! It’s easy to say ‘no, I can’t do it, I’ve got kids’ but once you say ‘yes’ you’ll find out it isn’t as hard as you thought.

Wherever I go I think about it beforehand, like how should I travel to this? I just keep in mind to be physically active. Before I didn’t even notice how many times I was taking the bus or a taxi. Now when I plan a trip I think how to get the most out of it. Is it better to walk, is it better to cycle, which way would I get most physical activity?

And walking and cycling are much cheaper! Before when I went out with my kids I had to include taxi money. Now I don’t take taxi money even though they moan the whole way. They still sometimes ask me if we can take an Uber and I tell them that we don’t do that anymore!

I don’t have a car. Before I started cycling that was one of my main goals, to get a car, but now I’ve decided I don’t want that anymore. In our community driving is, I don’t know, sort of an achievement and people think using walking as a form of travel is embarrassing. A lot of people’s excuse for driving is ‘I haven’t got time’, ‘I’ve got to work’, ‘I’ve got to drop the kids off.’ But I think if you planned it you would find a way to drop your kids off and go to work without that car.

I always struggled with my weight but now I feel I don’t have to worry as much because I’m cycling. I used to struggle with doing my household stuff. I had to mentally prepare myself just to change the bedding, do the dishes, laundry, but now I find that easy.

I do get stared at a lot and it is uncomfortable. When I’m on the bike people look at me like ‘what is she doing’, especially on the road. But then I would probably stare too if I saw a woman with a hijab on a bike. We’re just not used to seeing that and I wish we were. I think if I didn’t like cycling and then people stared at me that would make me give up, but because I enjoy it, it doesn’t matter. They’ll get used to you. And you’re not drawing attention to yourself for the wrong reasons, they’re okay reasons, you’re cycling, you’re keeping healthy.

Zoe suggested I do the Lifecycle cycle instructor training. I was thinking no way, that sounded ridiculous at first, but I gave it a go, thinking just at least try. When I got there, it was quite intimidating because the people doing the course with me, they were like the typical cyclists and I wasn’t! But it really helped me to be more confident cycling on the roads. Now I never have to question myself, because I know where I’m meant to be and I feel like the cars respect me more now.

I wanted to become an instructor so I could run women’s cycle groups. I just wanna encourage more women like me, who think it’s not possible. I wanna show mums that they can cycle with their children, it’s not just for the dads, so children without a father figure won’t be missing out. It was always my dad who took us out cycling and my mum never even suggested to come with us, it was like women are meant to stay at home. Because it starts with the parents, if they cycle they would be more able to let their children cycle, and if you cycle when you are young then you just continue cycling and we could replace all these cars.

Watch Abiir’s film

This story is an extract from the NIHR Open Research paper How Do You Move? Everyday stories of physical activity.