I want to tell you a story. My story. And by doing so, I hope I can find my calmness again. First, we need to go back in time. Back to when I was a little girl in Iran. Free and without a care in the world.
We lived in a big house with a garden, a pool and lots of trees and plants. I used to play with my four sisters, running around and climbing the trees. Back then, I had a red bike. It was like friend to me. I used to talk to it during the day and at night; I went to every corner of world on it – in my dreams.
My father had always been interested in sports. He used to tell me that when he was young, he wanted to be an athlete but because of poverty, he had to abandon that dream and work instead. Therefore, he wanted me to have all the possibilities that he didn’t have. He always told me “you’re better than the boys” and I remember how happy he was when I went as fast as I could up and down the street, while he was encouraging and applauding me. I will never forget the joy of cycling back then. The amazing feeling of the wind blowing through my hair.
When I was little, I wanted to be grow up as quickly as possible to achieve all my dreams, to be strong and have my father be proud of me. Unfortunately, the reality was quite different. We had to move out of the big house to a much smaller flat, which we shared with my grandfather. I remember how my grandfather used to tell my father about the last tenant in the house who had had to leave because of his reputation. The tenant’s 17-year-old daughter used to ride her bike around everywhere. I can still hear his voice saying that cycling was very bad for girls.
After a while, my grandfather bought his nephew, who was the same age as me, the best bike available. I didn’t have a bike anymore at that time and I remember sitting, just looking at my nephew’s. He never allowed me even to touch it so I used to stare at it with so much envy. At that point, I was almost grown up and I had to wear a hijab (scarf). I wasn’t allowed to go out without wearing it. I wasn’t allowed to laugh out loud either and I most definitely wasn’t allowed to ride a bike. All this is forbidden for women by law in Iran.
“Without my bike, I felt like I had no friends. Every night, I used to go to the rooftop, where nobody could see me, and just sit there with my legs hanging from the edge of the roof, dreaming and feeling the wind in my hair. While I was sitting up there, I was talking to the trees down in the alley, telling them how I hated all these walls around me”.
When I turned 18, I went to college. This was the first time I was ever allowed to leave my home on my own without the permission of my parents. At that time, I got 30.000 Tomans (About $30) per month from my father as my pocket money to spend on college, travelling and lunch. After class, I used to go and look at the local bike shop. I really wanted a bike, so I decided to put away most of my allowance and go by bus instead. Sometimes I didn’t even pay for the ticket; I just went in, hiding between all the other passengers. Instead of having lunch, I would just eat a biscuit.
The bike shop was right next to the bus stop. Sometimes I could stay there for hours, just looking at all the amazing bikes in the windows. One day, I went in to ask for the price of a blue mountain bike from Giant. Unfortunately, the price was way too high and I left without much hope of ever buying one.
However, I kept putting money aside and after a year and a half, I finally had enough. Despite long discussions with my father, I managed to convince him to help me buy that blue bike I had seen in the shop. It was a Thursday and I will never forget that feeling when I got the bike. It was like walking on clouds. I was crying of happiness, kissing my new bike.
It was a bit strange though, because I couldn’t ride outside since women aren’t allowed to ride in the streets and we didn’t have a yard anymore, living in that small flat. Instead, I put my bike against the wall, next to my bed. At nighttime, I used to admire it until I fell asleep. For six months, I was just looking at it. Okay, sometimes, I did try to ride around in the small flat, in-between the furniture and on the wool carpet, but that’s not really cycling.
I so badly wanted to go outside and just ride my bike as fast as I could and one night, when my parents weren’t home, I did it. I went out and everybody was watching me with a weird look on their face. The neighbors, the shopkeepers, everyone. I only went for a short ride to the end of the alley and back again but I was so happy.
Later on, after a lot of searching, I found a special cycling park just for women. It had a tall wall all around it, so no men could watch. I think it was about three kilometers long and you had go in circles between the trees. It was a bit of a jungle.
My father kept on encouraging me to ride my bike, he always supported me, and he brought me to the park once a week. After two years – and a lot of hard work from me and some of the other girls – we succeeded in getting a national championship for women in that park. That was a new starting point for us.
I bought an old road bike and some secondhand bike shoes. The bike was too big and the shoes weren’t my size either, but it didn’t matter. I took part in the race and I won! I remember my mother and father were both there, standing alongside the road cheering for me. It still gives me goosebumps, just to think about it.
Cycling was the most enjoyable thing in the world for me at that time but the joy didn’t last long as my father became very ill and died within three months. I will never forget my father’s last wish. He was lying in the hospital bed in very poor condition. He skin was pale and he was so thin. He looked at me and said “I only have one wish for you, that you will never ride your bike again”. In that moment, my heart broke. How could he say such a thing, knowing how much I loved cycling?
Later on, I found out the reason from my mother. My father had told her it was only because “I won’t be here to look after her anymore”. He always cared so much for me and he knew how dangerous it was for me to be riding my bike.
After his death, I kept on cycling. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. Sometimes, while I was on the bike, I thought I saw my father at the end of the road or at the top of the hill. I went as fast as I could to reach him, but he was never there. Instead, I looked up into the sky and said; “Look at me dad, I’m still fighting. Help me from up there. Be proud of me”.
Even though it’s forbidden for women to cycle in public in Iran, I’ve still been riding in the streets of Tehran for many years. Nowadays, however, I have started to train on the outskirts of the city where there aren’t as many police and I won’t get in trouble if they spot me. I have had so many encounters with the police. Most times, I manage to escape. The male cyclists here always tell me I have good bike handling skills. The truth is that I owe this to the police for all the times when I try to escape them while they chase me in their cars. I actually like this little cat-and-mouse game.
However, sometimes the police do catch me and when they do, it’s as if they have caught a thief. They will push me into their car, shout at me and several policewomen will guard me until we get to the station. One time, they even threw my bike in the street. I tried to hold on to it, but there were four men and two women so ultimately, I had to give it to them.
The police station is a very intimidating place. They shout at you, call you horrible names, push you in front of everybody and you don’t know where they will take you. It’s very frightening. Once, they took my only ID card, my driver’s license, and I didn’t get it back until three years later!
It’s not only the police who don’t want me to ride my bike. My grandfather too was strongly against it. Every time the police caught me, I was most afraid of what I would tell him. After the death of my father, my grandfather was the head of the family and he made no secret of letting me know that he didn’t approve of my choices. He even said I was the shame of the family.
In order to get out and ride my bike I had to wake up early in the morning. While everybody was still asleep, I would walk ever so slowly on the tip of my toes carrying my bike. Then I had to come back again before they woke up. It wasn’t easy and after six years of living like that, it came to a point where I got tired of it and finally, I gave in. I didn’t want to look at my bike, let alone ride it.
Recently though, I’ve started getting back on the bike again. Unfortunately, I’m not welcome at the national team anymore. I refused to wear my hijab and now they say I can’t be a part of the team, despite having won multiple national championships! On the other hand, the national team is also just a big charade. They only invite girls and women to go there for two weeks a year and only to show the world that Iran has no problem with women in sports. It’s all a big lie! We don’t even have a proper coach.
Apart from cycling, also dancing, singing and playing music is forbidden for women by law. I’m sure you can understand why I don’t feel happy and full of life anymore. To be honest, I feel more like a dead person.
I wish that I could have the same lifestyle as the European women have, that I could ride my bike every day without ever having to worry about the police, about my outfit or just my mere presence in the streets. I want to feel my hair moving freely in the wind again. I want to feel alive. I hope there is a God who can hear me and make my dreams come true.
Alas
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Tags: cycling, iran, womenscycling Last modified: Jan 20, 2020
