Bicycle craze sweeping Bali

A family affair: For the past three generations this Gianyar family has been servicing bicycles.By 5 a.m., Dewa Rai’s two kids are awake, out the door and pedaling their bicycles together with friends. Come evening and they are back on their bikes after school.

They are part of the bicycle craze currently sweeping across Bali.

As the day cools to evening, roads from Denpasar to Klungkung become the playgrounds for family groups and friends, gliding along on their bikes. Some are dressed to the hilt in biker shorts and helmets riding atop new bikes, but most cruise the streets in track pants, happily riding secondhand bikes rebuilt by families such as Putu Lingga Arsana’s that have been in the bike repair business for three generations.

From their tiny shop on a back street in Gianyar, the family has been repairing tire punctures, mending bike chains and refitting bearings since the 1950s.

His hands covered in grease and not stopping work for a minute, Arsana says his family sees bike repairs as both a business and a hobby, a business that is seeing more customers than ever during the current bike craze.

“We have been fixing bikes for three generations. We started here in Gianyar back in 1971 in this building. Before that we had the original shop in Pering village. My older brother stills runs that repair shop,” says Arsana, who, at 41 years of age, works with his parents who are close by, his mother making rim linings from inner tubes and his father repairing a bike chain.

With the rise in people taking to push bikes for sport and recreation, Arsana says his family does not stop working all day.

Bikes mean business: Bike repairman Sumardi says his shop has never been so busy.“We are really busy here with the bike craze. We used to open at 8 a.m. and close by 4 p.m., but now we are at work at 7 a.m. and don’t go home until at least 6 p.m. We are repairing several bicycles a day. We have seen bike crazes in the past, but this is bigger than ever. Back in 1993 I remember there was a craze when the Federal mountain bikes came out — everybody wanted one — but this time around it’s huge,” says Arsana.

Arsana says what is driving the latest trend of bike riding is a new model of bike called a Pixi.

“There are now a lot more people riding bikes than ever and I think that it is because of the Pixi bike. The rear wheel can run backwards and forwards, so kids can do tricks. I think also there are a lot more holidays, people have more leisure time so they are enjoying that time on bikes with their kids and family,” says Arsana, adding that the trend is healthy as people are exercising more.

A few kilometers away in Pering village, Arsana’s elder brother, 56-year-old Nyoman Putra, is also hard at work repairing bikes for local kids. Putra has been repairing bikes since he was a child and still enjoys the work.

“Even after all these years I am still interested in bikes and I still ride for sport, I ride a Federal mountain bike. Of seven brothers in the family only Arsana and I have followed in the footsteps of our father. Dad opened the repair shop and to me it’s our heritage, so I continue his work. I never made the move to repairing motor scooters, because I was helping Dad in this family business — that heritage is important — but I don’t think my kids will continue repairing bikes, so we are probably the last generation doing this,” says Putra as he oils a bike chain and checks the brakes on a child’s bicycle.

Bicycles in Bali: Bike shops are literally filled to the rafters with bike repair equipment.On any Sunday the bike shop in Peliatan near Ubud is densely crowded with mostly fathers and their kids. They stand fascinated watching the repair team at Toko Sepeda Morodadi take bikes to pieces and rebuild, re-spray and attach new gears to old bikes made new again.

According to Lasmi, joint owner of the flourishing business with her husband, Sumardi, the bike craze has meant they are busier than ever selling about a dozen bikes a day and repairing 15 or more. Their business, once built on renovated secondhand bikes, is now so overwhelmed with orders they have halted selling secondhand bikes to focus on repairs and new bikes.

“We just don’t have the time to renovate secondhand bikes anymore. We are constantly flat out these days, particularly with the Galungan holidays when everyone wants a bike to join the trend,” says Lasmi from inside her shop that is literally dripping with bikes, new tires and rims, the shop so packed with stock it is difficult to enter.

One customer waiting for his daughter’s bike to be repaired, Nyoman Muriawan, says the biking trend brings his family together.

“We ride as a family, including my wife. We head down to Bedulu village and ride through the back streets. Riding together gives us time to talk about things, but I do worry about the traffic on the main roads — so we don’t ride there. I would like to see a bike path for riders so we can ride in safety,” Muriawan says.

His concerns about safe riding are echoed by Dewa Rai. His children, aged 12 and eight, ride their bikes at least an hour a day, says Rai, and he is constantly concerned for their welfare as they ride through dense traffic.

“The kids have a great time riding with their friends and it is a healthy and fun activity, but we do worry about the kids because there are so many cars,” says Rai who was at the bike repair shop to make sure his kids’ bikes were in tip top form for the upcoming Fun Bike competition later in the month.

“It would be a good thing if we had a bike path here like they do in Renon [near Denpasar]. On Sundays they close part of the roads there so people can ride and many people join in — it’s great,” Rai says.

Kids are starting young on bikes, says Nyoman Merta from Singakerta who is at the bike repair shop
for adjustments to his daughter’s tiny bicycle.

“I ride with the kids. My son is 11 and my daughter Kadek Juli is three, so she has training wheels on her bike. It’s really good for our family, riding together. We share time and play together. I think this is beneficial for my relationship with my kids. We relax together on our bikes,” says Merta as he collects his daughter’s bike and heads home to go riding with the kids.