# Why no bicycles



## greenstreak1946 (May 28, 2017)

with a country with no money why doesn't the local filipinos ride bicycles? they will spend their last pesos to ride a trike. Vary rare do you see them on a bicycle. 

Anybody got an ideal why they don't ride bicycles?

art


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## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

greenstreak1946 said:


> with a country with no money why doesn't the local filipinos ride bicycles? they will spend their last pesos to ride a trike. Vary rare do you see them on a bicycle.
> 
> Anybody got an ideal why they don't ride bicycles?
> 
> art


We have a lot of bicycle riders here in Subic. I see a lot of workers riding from Olongapo to jobs in the Freeport. And we have serious cyclists out for rides. However, they don't allow trikes and jeepneys in the freeport so that is a contributing factor.

In other area, I think the hot and sticky weather makes the bike vs. trike choice easy. Riding a bike means you will be hot and sweaty.


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## Asian Spirit (Mar 1, 2010)

DonAndAbby said:


> We have a lot of bicycle riders here in Subic. I see a lot of workers riding from Olongapo to jobs in the Freeport. And we have serious cyclists out for rides. However, they don't allow trikes and jeepneys in the freeport so that is a contributing factor.
> 
> In other area, I think the hot and sticky weather makes the bike vs. trike choice easy. Riding a bike means you will be hot and sweaty.


Very true. Other reasons would be that many have to travel far for work, no room on a bike for groceries when shopping, many times several family members need to travel together, locally made bikes are a waste of money and won't last while good bikes can cost over a years salary making them unaffordable.
Poverty does not mean that everyone must live like dogs. They do try to live as best as they can. That is human nature and is a good thing


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## fmartin_gila (May 15, 2011)

Must vary somewhat with different parts of the country. There are a lot of bike riders here in Iloilo City and as I remember there were a lot in Cebu City when I stayed there some years ago. Here they mingle right with all the rest of the mixed traffic on all the roads and sometimes they can be quite the nuisance as they demand the same space as motor vehicles in all the different lanes of traffic plus weaving in & out of the lanes and between vehicles. Sometimes it almost seems they are daring you to run over them. 

Fred


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## Tukaram (Dec 18, 2014)

We have some cyclist here but it is a dangerous place for bikes. There is no discipline in any of the drivers and in the food chain... bicycled rank down at the very bottom. Cyclists get no respect, and quite often get killed. I really miss cycling but it is just not worth the risk with these idiotic drivers. 

...and Iloilo said it is a bike friendly city, in a recent FB post. I had to reply and tell them I have ridden all over SEA and the PIs is by far the worst place for cyclists.


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## greenstreak1946 (May 28, 2017)

hey guys, I see your point about riding bicycles here. I have been in Cebu, Davao, Manila and I hardly ever seen anyone riding a bicycle. I guess I haven't been in the right places. I do agree it is hot here but I am from Florida in the states. Hot there also but a lot of bicycle riders. I use to ride one to, but my joints now are to sore. haha I guess it would be hard to haul enough groceries for several people on one.

art


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Sundays around subic and up into Zambales is very popular with sports cyclist.


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## mogo51 (Jun 11, 2011)

There are quite a few bike riders in Nth Luzon, I know because you always see them on the wrong side of the road. Including the bloody highway.
There are lots of bike riding groups and they in the main are more sensible. I would like to ride a bike but not here thank you very much. In the same safety zone as motorbikes.IMO.


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## M.C.A. (Feb 24, 2013)

I ride a bike I bought at a surplus store it was new though and it's little and has only one speed with basket but it's real comfortable. Last time I was in Manila I did see several people riding bike it's a much cheaper less stressful way to get around.


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## JRB__NW (Apr 8, 2015)

I have a road bike and ride for sport and my health in the foothills of Cebu. Lot's of nice road bikes ridden here by rich Filipinos and triathletes. I avoid the more congested areas for safety and health reasons - don't like breathing diesel smoke and playing bumper tag. Actually most drivers keep a safe distance - worst are the young punks on motorbikes with open headers blasting by a foot away as I make my climb.


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## Maxx62 (Dec 31, 2013)

greenstreak1946 said:


> with a country with no money why doesn't the local filipinos ride bicycles? they will spend their last pesos to ride a trike. Vary rare do you see them on a bicycle.
> 
> Anybody got an ideal why they don't ride bicycles?
> 
> art


Just my guess, but status and prestige seem to be very important here in PI, and I think that it may have something to do with the fact that many upper crust people (or people who would like to think of themselves as upper crust) tend to view bicycle riding as something that a poor or uncultured person would do. 

I remember many years ago asking my father-in-law why more people didn't walk short distances instead of taking their car or a motorcycle. He told me that walking was considered a poor person's way of getting around, and most people, even of modest means, would be embarrassed to be seen walking along the side of the road, and they would probably get teased by people who knew them as they walked along. 

A few years ago my wife and I invited her two nieces (both very attractive girls in their mid-twenties at the time) out to lunch at a nice restaurant at the marina where there are a lot of yachts tied up. After we finished eating, everyone wanted to go over to the mall to look around. The entrance of the mall couldn't have been more than three hundred yards tops from the restaurant, but everyone headed to the car. I told them I didn't want to drive the car such as short distance, and the parking at that particular mall is usually pretty bad. 

My wife kept insisting that we ride in the car, but I put my foot down, and we walked to the mall. As we walked along the access road to the mall, I noticed that both of my wife's nieces had huge tears streaming down their faces, and they were both silently sobbing as if an invisible task master were whipping them on their backs. 

Later their mother told me that they were worried that the rich people who own the yachts would seem them walking, and they were highly embarrassed, because, at that time, they were hoping to meet a wealthy guy. They were both so upset that I made them walk a few hundred yards that they didn't talk to me for over a year after that. 

There is an old man in our neighborhood named "Joe" who rides an old Chinese bicycle that he has added a wooden toolbox to. My mother-in-law calls him sometimes to do gardening, or to do some handyman work. His teeth are completely brown, he smells to high heavens, but he's actually a pretty good worker compared to many of the younger people. It is people like Joe who ride bicycles, and people like my wife's nieces want to make it clear to everyone that they don't belong to the same social caste as someone like Joe. - That's what I think is going on, but there maybe other factors such as the dangerous traffic, poor quality roads, and air pollution.


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## Hey_Joe (Sep 13, 2016)

greenstreak1946 said:


> with a country with no money why doesn't the local filipinos ride bicycles? they will spend their last pesos to ride a trike. Vary rare do you see them on a bicycle.
> 
> Anybody got an ideal why they don't ride bicycles?
> 
> art


Yes. I have come to the conclusion that they cannot posses the Bicycles they try to own.

Bicycles quickly become community property. Here today, gone tomorrow.

I have years of experience buying workers bicycles so they could get to work on time. They get drunk, lose track of them, forget where they parked them, get stolen because they have no money to buy locks to secure them, lend them to neighbors or friends in the barangay to never get them back because it's rude to ask one to return their own bicycle..... 

One can't ride a bicycle one no longer has.


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## Simon1983 (Jun 6, 2016)

Maxx62 said:


> Just my guess, but status and prestige seem to be very important here in PI, and I think that it may have something to do with the fact that many upper crust people (or people who would like to think of themselves as upper crust) tend to view bicycle riding as something that a poor or uncultured person would do.
> 
> I remember many years ago asking my father-in-law why more people didn't walk short distances instead of taking their car or a motorcycle. He told me that walking was considered a poor person's way of getting around, and most people, even of modest means, would be embarrassed to be seen walking along the side of the road, and they would probably get teased by people who knew them as they walked along.
> 
> ...


I completely agree with you Maxx. I would also add in terms of walking, they also see it as dangerous to travel any sort of distance or to travel anywhere solo.

I ride a bike almost everyday (I have a very short commute to work but also use it to go to the gym or to buy groceries).
The only other people I see riding bikes are either rich hobbyists/triathletes or the poor labourers/tradesmen you mentioned.

The main problem I see with riding a bike here is you will be sweaty wherever you arrive to. In terms of safety, I recognise it is a dangerous activity, but so is riding a trike or jeepney. I have found that, compared to the UK, car and motorbike drivers give a lot more courtesy and respect to bike riders. In the UK there is a lot of road rage and car drivers hate cyclists (and vice versa). In the Philippines everyone seems to get along with the other road users.


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## mogo51 (Jun 11, 2011)

Maxx62 said:


> Just my guess, but status and prestige seem to be very important here in PI, and I think that it may have something to do with the fact that many upper crust people (or people who would like to think of themselves as upper crust) tend to view bicycle riding as something that a poor or uncultured person would do.
> 
> I remember many years ago asking my father-in-law why more people didn't walk short distances instead of taking their car or a motorcycle. He told me that walking was considered a poor person's way of getting around, and most people, even of modest means, would be embarrassed to be seen walking along the side of the road, and they would probably get teased by people who knew them as they walked along.
> 
> ...


This is a very interesting post and I had not really given that attitude much thought. But I do believe after reading this article, that such is the case here. It is a very 'class sensitive society for certain. But the post does take it to a new and ridiculous level. I love to walk as much as possible but back issues mean I am limited, but I do get some strange looks when I am walking. It is if they do not seem to understand why a 'westerner' would be walking. That and the presence of all the junk food shops could well be the reason that there are far too many obese people here.

So like the west, with affluence comes laziness.


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## greenstreak1946 (May 28, 2017)

hey mogo51

i have had my past experiences walking in the philippines. i had a gf 8 years ago that was packing her things at the hotel to leave me there. I ask her what was wrong and she was mad at me because i walked a lot and not spend money on trikes or buses every time we went out. then i had another gf that refused to walk. she wanted to ride a trike each time we went out even though it was a 10 minute walk. I personally gather some are very lazy. they would rather spend their last pesos on a ride then walk.

art


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

greenstreak1946 said:


> hey mogo51
> 
> i have had my past experiences walking in the philippines. i had a gf 8 years ago that was packing her things at the hotel to leave me there. I ask her what was wrong and she was mad at me because i walked a lot and not spend money on trikes or buses every time we went out. then i had another gf that refused to walk. she wanted to ride a trike each time we went out even though it was a 10 minute walk. I personally gather some are very lazy. they would rather spend their last pesos on a ride then walk.
> 
> art


Hey Art, hear you loud and clear. I often went for my daily walks, 5,6 and sometimes 8 kilometres each way, enjoyed but the better half kept telling me it wasn't safe, better to get a tricycle or cab, why? it's too hot out there was the reply, am I safe to walk the streets in Manila I ask? No comes the retort, why I ask? Because it is not safe is the reply. Bengie do you not think I am not street wise? You don't know this country and people,,,,,, from the mouths of babes. My only hassle ever was in Cam Sur, Naga when I was followed by 2 young Pinoys, knew they were following me on one of my walks, but went on my course to see the city, a kind lady (yes she saw them) suggested I go in the bank ahead or a shop with security, which I did and TY to the Pinay that noticed. Not sure what would have happened if I didn't enter the bank but It has never stopped me since with my walking, aware always with a few hundred Pesos to give to problem situation and hopefully walkaway.
art, My better half won't walk either, hates it and will stay indoors when I venture away. 

Cheers, Steve.


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## greenstreak1946 (May 28, 2017)

hey steve,

i lived 2 blocks from the SM mall. she wanted to ride trike every time. she would get mad if I insisted on walking. go figured. 

art


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## JRB__NW (Apr 8, 2015)

Maxx, that was the greatest story and I can totally see it happening. 

Yes, it's endemic to the culture. Just watch the jeepney let someone off then go another 50 yards and stop again.. They won't walk 50 yards to get their ride. Then again some have a hike up to the road to begin with, at least here.

After reading these stories I feel so fortunate. My lovely (and slender) woman loves to go for local walks early in the morning, or longer hikes. Often we walk to the local market or to catch the jeepney about a km away. We skip using the car if it's a local errand. Why not get the exercise?


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## Maxx62 (Dec 31, 2013)

JRB__NW said:


> Maxx, that was the greatest story and I can totally see it happening.
> 
> Yes, it's endemic to the culture. Just watch the jeepney let someone off then go another 50 yards and stop again.. They won't walk 50 yards to get their ride. Then again some have a hike up to the road to begin with, at least here.
> 
> After reading these stories I feel so fortunate. My lovely (and slender) woman loves to go for local walks early in the morning, or longer hikes. Often we walk to the local market or to catch the jeepney about a km away. We skip using the car if it's a local errand. Why not get the exercise?


Well, the story of my wife's nieces crying as we walked to the mall happened almost a decade ago, so they have matured a little bit since then, but not a whole lot. 

Also, as a kid, I remember watching movies of people riding bicycles in the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution, and for a long time I just assumed that everyone in Asia rode a black three-speed bicycle. However, the first time I came over here in 1987 I was just flabbergasted by the number of vehicles on the road, and the completely horrible traffic (even back then). 

To me it seems that many of the adults over here don't actually have jobs, they don't have to keep a very tight schedule, so they don't mind it so much if they have to sit in their air-conditioned SUV (most likely paid for by OFW sending money home) in a traffic jam that may last for hours. After all, conditions inside climate controlled vehicle may actually be better than the conditions found in their tiny home where many family members are staying. 

Anyway, not the best way to run a transportation system, but I doubt that anyone will be able to convince the locals to give up their Ford Everest for a three speed bicycle anytime soon.


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