Bicycles

In Colombo where I am living in, I seldom see people riding bicycles. It does not mean there are a lot of sloping roads. They think it is dangerous to ride bicycles in Colombo in which there are several problems on traffic manner. However I see bicycle riders once in a while and they are all men.

Some time ago I visited the northern place we were doing project. I found females of various generations--from girls in primaries to adult ladies were riding bicycles. Was it the difference between the culture of Shinhala and the one of Tamil? Actually that is not true.

Before 1990, it was rare that ladies ride bicycles here, in the northern part of Sri Lanka. From this period the economic sanctions was started and it got harder to get gasoline and petroleum to the north. Therefore bicycles, which do not need any gasoline got popular. After that, it was not rare that women ride bicycles any longer in the north.